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Segment featuring Morris Dees and Dan Stein, others. Show aired on January 16, 2003. Click here for complete transcript of all segments.
MATTHEWS: This half-hour, the HARDBALL debate, should citizen militia groups patrol the border with Mexico to keep illegal immigrants out? And later, actress Mia Farrow and Brian Dennehy on their new play about death row. But first, it's time for a look at the latest news.
(NEWSBREAK)
MATTHEWS: The HARDBALL debate tonight: should citizen militias patrol America's border with Mexico to make sure illegal immigrants stay out of the country? Or is the Federal government doing enough?
Here's HARDBALL correspondent David Shuster.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID SHUSTER, HARDBALL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Despite the latest technology and 800 new federal agents over the last five years, the Justice Department acknowledges that more illegal aliens than ever are sneaking in from Mexico. By some estimates, it is as many as 3,000 aliens every week.
And look who is trying to stop them. No, these are not Federal Marshals and these are not INS agents in disguise. This is a rag tag group of concerned Arizona citizens patrolling the border and packing heat.
DAN GRISWOLD, CATO INSTITUTE: It's just a terrible idea to have these weekend warriors running around in the desert like some grade B Hollywood movie. It is just inevitable that somebody's going to get shot.
SHUSTER: But the so-called Arizona militia points out they are not a wild group shooting at anything that moves. All of the members have concealed weapon permits. Most of the volunteers have undergone their own sort of training and they usually carry first aid and food to help aliens in need.
DAN STEIN, FEDERATION FOR AMERICAN IMMIGRANT REFORM: They are respecting U.S. law, which is more than the aliens are doing. And they are trying to treat the aliens with dignity.
SHUSTER: According to Stein, it's a type of citizen's arrest. The illegal aliens are spotted and detained and brought to the attention of Federal border officials. And over the last year with the militia's help, apprehensions are up by 50 percent.
STEIN: They don't want to be down there doing this because this is why we pay taxes. They are doing this because they feel it's important to their grandchildren not to leave a country that is so overcrowded, overpopulated, and poverty stricken that the place isn't worth living in.
SHUSTER: But critics maintain that the vigilante groups with their anti-immigrant attitude could ignite violence, harming citizens on both sides of the border. And since most of the Mexicans are willing to do the kinds of jobs many Americans refuse, critics charge that the militia's concerns about crime and security are misplaced.
GRISWOLD: If they were sincere that they were fighting terrorism, they would be on the Canadian border.
SHUSTER (on-camera): The question is, when it comes to Mexico, if the U.S. border patrol is failing, should American citizens be allowed to take matters into their own hands?
I'm David Shuster for HARDBALL in Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MATTHEWS: Morris Dees is with the Southern Poverty Law Center and Patrick Buchanan is the co-host of MSNBC's "BUCHANAN & PRESS" which airs weekdays here at 2:00 Eastern.
Let me go to Morris Dees. What's wrong with these vigilantes filling in the hole that's so clearly there along the Mexican border, especially?
MORRIS DEES, SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER: Well, everything is wrong with it. Vigilantism in our nation has a tragic and blood soaked history and it's going to be violence. It's going to happen. The INS may not be doing its job to suit everybody, but neither is the SEC. There are millions of Americans who lost their money to white boys on Wall Street.
MATTHEWS: All right.
DEES: But people wouldn't go packing heat up there to try to force these people to not take the chairs and their seats. Bad idea.
MATTHEWS: But don't you get rewarded in this country for catching somebody cheating on their taxes? Don't you get permission in this country under our constitution to make a citizen's arrest? What is different here?
DEES: It depends on where you do it and how you do it. If you catch somebody cheating on the taxes, you simply report information to the IRS and the IRS investigates and gives you a 10 percent penalty if you do it.
We had a big anti-government movement at the time of Timothy McVeigh, the whole patriot movement, what this is a part of. Look what happened. Timothy McVeigh decided he'd blow up the Oklahoma Federal building.Blacks all across the south were lynched because whites didn't think law enforcement was doing a good enough job.
The issue here is not-let me say this, the issue is not immigration. The issue here is the whole thing of vigilantism which is an anathema to democracy.
PAT BUCHANAN, CO-HOST, "BUCHANAN & PRESS": No, the issue here is the fact that the United States of America is being invaded by a million and a half illegal aliens every year.
Chris, go down to that border. I visited a woman named Teresa Murray who lived behind a 7 foot chain link fence with razor wire on top of it, bars on her windows, sleeps with a gun by her bed table and her two guard dogs have been poisoned by some guy throwing meat over the fence with glass in it. She is 82 years old and she's living in terror and living in fear because the government of the United States is refusing to do its duties. I agree with Mr. Dees on this.
Far better that the border patrol defend America's borders, but in the absence of that, people are filling the vacuum to defend their property and their rights and they've got every right to do it.
MATTHEWS: Mr. Dees, do you think the United States government should meet its commitment to protect our southern border and prevent illegal entry?
DEES: No question about it. But a better idea is to do what President Fox and President Bush want to do is come up with a work permit system, because these immigrants are not coming here looking for work. They are coming here to fill jobs that are available to them.
Agriculture in America, business, chicken processing plants, landscape people, homeowners, they are the ones who are opening the doors to these people. It's like a don't tell policy. American business wants these immigrants here. And President Bush has the right idea, if I understand it, to have a work permit system that would have buses crossing, bringing people instead of having people to sneak in.
BUCHANAN: Let me respond to that. Look, it's against the law for American businesses to systemically hire illegal aliens. Morris, these people, I do they're coming. Most of them are coming for jobs, but they are breaking our laws. They're breaching our borders. Some of them are coming here for crime. Many of them are getting on welfare and basically leeching the tax dollars of the American citizens.
And the government of the United States, no matter what Mr. Fox thinks, has a duty and the president does to defend the borders of the United States. They don't want our troops in South Korea. Why don't we bring them home and put them on our own border?
MATTHEWS: Mr. Dees, does the United States government have right to deny entry into this country of illegal immigrants?
DEES: No question about the United States government has a right to patrol its borders and to protect its immigration policies. But you know what? Instead of arresting the immigrants, why don't they arrest all the corporations and the president of the chicken processing plants and the hog farms in this country and put those executives in jails for knowingly employing illegal aliens?
BUCHANAN: We got some agreement here. Look, I agree with you 100 percent. Any employer who systemically hires and exploits in a lot of cases these workers for less than the minimum wage, ought to be prosecuted and punished.
But we also, Chris, this is about basically our national unity, our cohesion, our existence as one country, one people. Samuel Huntington is not an extremist or a vigilante. He says the very future of the country is at stake because all these illegals who have no loyalty to the country are congregating in one place, which is exactly what the founding fathers did not want. They wanted folks who immigrated here dispersed across this country and you are in danger of losing this southwest basically as a part of our country.
MATTHEWS: Morris Dees the only way you can avoid having vigilantes, avoid having this porous border as you suggest is go to the heart of the matter, the employers in this country. Do you support a verifiable I.D. card for people in this country so that you can prove you are a citizen, prove you are the person you claim to be?
Because that's the only way to prosecute business people is to say they didn't ask for the I.D. card and they are breaking law on purpose. Otherwise they can always say they were handed some phony document and they could always blame it on something else.
DEES: Well, I don't think I would be for any kind of I.D. card like the kind they had in Russia.
MATTHEWS: You just said the way to keep illegals out of this country was to stop corporations from hiring. How do you do that?
DEES: Well, it is pretty plain that these large corporations in agribusinesses employ -.
MATTHEWS: How do you stop them from going it?
DEES: Well, like you stop people from cheating on their taxes. Just because a person pays taxes and a lot of people cheat, you don't arrest everybody. You don't have them give a card vouching they are a Sunday school person. I think what you have to do is you do some investigation and that is what you need to do.
MATTHEWS: In other words, you're going to make-Morris the problem with your argument is because of your civil liberties commitments is you are refusing to get tough with the employers who are hiring illegal immigrants into the country. You are refusing to get tough by using vigilantes. You don't have a solution.
DEES: Yes, we do, too. I think the solution is a make sense immigration policy that allows the country who needs workers to employ aliens that are not citizens.
BUCHANAN: Morris, what you are saying is throw in the towel and let them come in because otherwise they're going to break the law and come in. Chris, we have a policy that has Worked along the San Diego border.
MATTHEWS: Thank you very much, Morris Dees. Thank you very much, Patrick Buchanan. Up next, actress Mia Farrow and Brian Dennehy, two of my favorites are in a new play about the death penalty. Great play, great guests coming up. You're watching HARDBALL.
