Minutemen, Murder, Mormons

Last week, two men and one woman posing as U.S. Marshals barged into the house of an illegal immigrant and shot and killed him and his 9-yr-old daughter. They are "minutemen", groups of anti-immigrant individuals who take the law into their own hands and take turns patrolling our Southern border, and apparently now, have extended their duties to breaking into homes and committing first-degree murder. While I realize that other Minutemen have lambasted their rogue counterparts, and that most Minutemen are not the extreme like these individuals, it's still telling of the kind of personalities and ideologies that are attracted to organizations like this.

A few weeks ago I was at a national security simulation with the rest of the BYU interns. We were discussing narco-trafficking and how to secure the U.S. border with Mexico further. The issue of minutemen came up. The rest of the students on my team decided it was a stellar idea to incorporate these individuals into our law enforcement ranks, you know, since they are doing the job anyway we might as well pay them. I was the only one in a group of 10 or so that thought this was absolutely ludicrous! Let's take individuals who think they are above the law already and give them authority. When Tim shared this story on CNN about the minutemen really taking the law into their own hands by committing first-degree murder I felt sick that BYU students could think that what these minutemen are doing are good deeds at protecting U.S. soil.

Then I thought to this Daily Universe article last year about Utah Minutemen, who take trips down to the border to participate in patrolling. One individual who does this on a regular basis: None other than Rep. Chris Herrod. Remember, the one who beat Claralyn Hill for State House? Remember, the incredibly-unexperienced, ridiculously-policied, self-proclaimed on his campaign website "PhD flunkout due to his ADD" candidate who beat Claralyn only because he was running on the Republican ticket, though I can bet that Claralyn's moderate views are much more in line with the constituents of the 62nd district than his. A telling part for me was when more people in his ward voted for Claralyn because anyone that actually knew him would not even vote for him. And yet he's still there, in the Utah House of Representatives. I hate Utah politics. SO MUCH.

Yesterday on the way to the temple, Tim and I met a really nice couple from El Salvador and got to talking (half in Spanish, half in English). Amelia and Jesus have been in this country for 24 years, I'm guessing they probably came during the civil war in the 1980s. She works as a housekeeper but he can't work because he can't find a job without papers. They are losing their apartment this month because they can't pay rent. They don't know where they will go next, but they have been living in this same area since they arrived 24 years ago. Their son was born here. They are faithful members of the Silver Spring Barrio (ward) and faithfully attend the temple once a month. What if someone wanted to shoot them because they were not documented citizens? Does Jason Chaffetz want to round them up with the rest of the illegal immigrants and put them into an internment camp? What if they were in the same ward? Then would he want to?

And speaking on the LDS side of things: I just can't make sense of all of this Mormon politics anti-immigration rhetoric. We preach at church one thing about charity and pure love of Christ for all man, but does that not extend to those who left their country in desperation to find a better life but since the channels for obtaining legal status in the U.S. are so difficult and expensive they had to do so illegally? Why are members of our Church so anti-immigrant?



(If you want to listen to the 911-call of the wife from the first story, it's here at CNN. But I warn you, it's kind of disturbing).