by Dave Workman
Senior Editor

A major shift in border control policy has been announced by Homeland Security Department (HSD) Secretary Michael Chertoff, who told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Oct. 18 that there will be no more “catch and release” approach to apprehending non-Mexican illegal aliens.

Already, according to Chertoff, about 900,000 Mexican citizens are apprehended and sent back across the border every year, but this new policy targets the tens of thousands of other illegals who are caught, and frequently turned loose because there is no place to hold them.

“Our goal,” Chertoff said, “is to completely eliminate the ‘catch and release’ enforcement problem, and return every single illegal entrant, no exceptions.”

The announcement brought a quick reaction from gun rights activists who have been watching the border problem for years.

Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA)—the organization that is currently putting pressure on the White House through a national campaign promoting “Border Control, Not Gun Control”—indicated that public attention is evidently having an effect.

“We’re going to want to see just how serious an effort this is,” Gottlieb said, “but it is certainly a step in the right direction. Our members have responded overwhelmingly, and we are going ahead with our campaign to flood the White House with mail and telephone calls. Demand for our ‘Control Borders, Not Guns’ bumper stickers has been phenomenal.

“Frankly,” Gottlieb added, “American gunowners are tired of taking the political rap for gun crimes committed by people who shouldn’t even be in the country.”

Geoff Beneze, a resident of Tempe, AZ, reacted with a “Hallelujah!” Beneze, who also owns a ranch near the border, has spent considerable time on that property just making certain that it isn’t damaged by the flood of illegal immigrants.

“The ranch will no longer need to look like an assault force ready to go,” he told Gun Week. “We can relax a bit and not expect the second revolution at any moment.”

Beneze is one of a growing number of citizens who see the darker side of illegal immigration: crime and health care. He works at a hospital and predicted that when the new policy kicks in, “the census in the hospitals from Douglas to Phoenix will nearly instantly drop by 50% or better.”

Another activist, Rick Shay from Colorado told Gun Week, “This is an excellent start at making the United States more secure. Without effective border control such as this, we have no country.”

“We have to make it easy to be legal and painful to be illegal,” said Ken Meinken from Aberdeen, OH.

And Plano, TX, resident Israel Rozemberg told Gun Week, “Enforcing legal immigration will not only benefit Americans but also those who want to make this their country and immigrate legally.”

But Chris Simcox, the former Arizona newspaper publisher now in charge of running the Minuteman Project, remains skeptical.