Illegal crossings are down along the border in southeast Arizona, and how could it be otherwise. The lies and fearmongering about the activities of the handful of ordinary Americans forming the Minuteman Project (a month-long citizen’s watch program on the border) have brought out the Mexican military, Mexican federal agents, Sonora state police, extra U.S. Border Patrol, Arizona state police, Cochise County sheriff’s deputies, the ACLU, Hispanic activists, and hordes of reporters with satellite trucks. You’d have to be an idiot to try to cross in the middle of all that, which is exactly what the Minutemen intended. It reminds me of a scene from the movie Ruthless People, where Judge Reinhold is picking up ransom money, watched by hundreds of police on every rooftop, and then some moron comes along and pulls a gun on him and tries to steal the ransom.