Patricia Saye is so fed up with illegal immigration—Mexicans usurping our southern borders, Chinese coming in from Canada, who knows who slipping in or being smuggled in elsewhere; all of them overcrowding our cities and burdening quality of life—that she's going to ... drive her car from Cashman Field to the south end of the Strip at noon Saturday? In a show of vehicular solidarity, hundreds of other motorists (she hopes) will trail her in a mobile protest that won't be hard to notice on the most famously gnarled of streets: Just look for the cars decorated with signs and banners demanding "Close the Borders by November 1 or Else!"
With the help of radio personality Mark Edwards of KDWN 720-AM, Saye's piqued interest from Arizona, New York, Oregon, Houston, Indiana and Seattle, with citizens similarly vexed over America's malleable borders ready to take to the streets (in a set of wheels) to drive home the point. Saye's purposely vague on the expected turnout—between five and 500, she says, before settling on a number: "I'm thinking 150."
Thinking about illegal aliens and their aforementioned drain on America's quality of life, particularly health care, and thinking about terrorism—she cites recent reports that 25 Chechen terrorists entered the country from Mexico in July; count Vanity Fair writer James Wolcott among the Doubting Thomases about the elusive Chechens ("Funny how precise their numbers are said to be, given that we know not how or when they got over those mountains, or whence they went, seem to have slid off his radar")—got Saye to thinking about doing something to convince the presidential candidates to do something about our borders.
"I'm tired of the illegal alien situation. We're supposed to be concerned about terrorists, but our borders are open. I have talked with people who work on the border, and they say that some of the people that have been arrested, who've tried to pass as Mexicans, sounded like they're from the Middle East," says Saye, acknowledging she doesn't know what a Middle Eastern accent sounds like and isn't trying to racially profile. "The fact is, there is no homeland security. It's homeland insecurity as long as our borders are open. I want our borders closed. And I'm not picking on any one candidate. But if neither President Bush nor Sen. John Kerry says anything about closing the borders, we will remember in November."
In the spirit of bipartisanship, the Weekly polled both candidates, OK, their websites, about who'll do what to secure the borders.
President Bush: According to an August 2 policy memorandum, he's already implemented measures to increase scrutiny at America's ports of commerce, enhanced Mexican border patrols by more than 1,000 agents and fortified the Canadian border.
Sen. Kerry relies on a quote from Air Force Brig. Gen. Clyde H. Garner: "We did not seal the border because we did not have enough troops to do that and that brought in the terrorists."
Living in Las Vegas since 1964, Saye became politically active in 1988, when she marched on the Strip protesting the right to desecrate the American flag. In 2000, she represented Nevada in the Second Amendment Sisters' Armed Informed Mothers March, which countered the Million Mom March ("Of course we didn't have guns, we couldn't in Washington"). On October 24, she participated in a protest in which the U.N. flag was burned. ("The U.N. is corrupt," she says. "We need to get the U.S. out of the U.N. and get the U.N. out of the U.S.")
At various times during the interview, Saye harped on the illegal immigration from Mexico, each time reiterating that she's not racist, and vowed that her band of motor voters would exact political retribution for ignoring their pleas.
"It's wrong to be branded racist because you want the laws abided by," she says. "If I were to break a law, I'd be arrested or fined for it. I don't care who you are, you are not above the law. You are breaking the law if you harbor these people [illegals], bring them in and hire them.
"By illegal aliens, I'm not referring to Mexicans," she continues. "There are some wonderful Mexican people. I'm talking about people from all countries who are coming illegally. I believe a lot of Chinese are coming across the Canadian border. It's a slap in the face to the people who have come here the proper way. Those people, I welcome them, not the ones who come here bringing diseases and using our medical services."
The more Saye talked, the more her feelings jibed with those of groups like the Washington, D.C.,-based Federation for American Immigration Reform, which claims immigrants from countries with lesser health-care systems (just about every nation outside the G-8) pose health risks to the United States. This counters data from the National Institutes of Health and American Journal of Public Health showing that immigrants live longer than Americans, largely because they smoke less, eat better and aren't as fat.
As she typically does before organizing a protest, Saye contacted Las Vegas police, asking if she needed a permit to lead a mobile demonstration. No. Obey the traffic laws and you'll be fine, she was told.
And that's really what her protest is about, she says—obeying laws: "This country was made by immigrants, but they had laws to follow, too."