Here's one family's story of the US government's failure to protect the border with Mexico:

The Garner family on Purdy Lane doesn't know exactly how many chickens, roosters, Guinea hens, or geese they own on their 5-acre farm in this dusty town on the US-Mexico border.

But they know the number is smaller than the number of illegal immigrants who can be seen daily in groups of three, 10, 40, 60, and more on their property.

Imagine if this was your family--your daughters--living on the "undocumented immigrant" trail:

Mr. Garner, a carpenter, his wife, and three daughters (age 10, 12, and 15) tell countless stories that are as alarming to outsiders as they are matter-of-fact to them. Theirs is a life dominated by self-defense lessons, family practice drills to huddle in the master bedroom, obligatory two-way radios for kids who walk to school, and a handgun on the hip for mom.

Although violent encounters are relatively rare, their stories tell a narrative of how surreal - and spooky - life can be for families that straddle the 1,400-mile Maginot Line known as the US-Mexican border.

"You'll be weeding in your garden and turn around to see 20 of them standing in front of you, demanding water and food," says Dawn Garner, the mother.

"I come out to go to school, and they are changing their clothes under my bedroom window," says daughter Shayne.

"They leave backpacks filled with drugs on the lawn," says sister Ciara. "It's scary and creepy."

And yes, since 9-11, the border has become an ever more dangerous national security problem:

Despite increasingly harsh crackdowns over the years by the US Border Patrol (both pre- and post-911), the presence of illegal immigrants is also a growing phenomenon, says Ms. Garner, who grew up here in Naco, population 7,000. And it is more dangerous and pernicious, she says, with a growing number of people of different nationalities coming across the border, including from the Middle East, India, and Afghanistan.

The evidence of that comes in Islamic prayer rugs found in the desert dust, Arabic literature left by still-warm campfires, and Afghani head garb caught on cactus quills.

Once they're in Mexico, through the porous border they have access to the entire United States. At flea markets and bazaars across the country, they can obtain fake ID packets that include false drivers licenses, Social Security numbers, the works, for about $150. And then they can live here unmolested.

This is the problem the Minutemen are trying to embarass the government into solving. It's why they're out there patrolling the desert:

Days into the project, the Garners and other neighbors say the idea is working, even though people on both sides of the border know the experiment is only temporary.

"Everyone here welcomes the Minutemen," says mechanic Dylan Cron, who fixes cars in a metallic Quonset hut about a mile from the Garner farm. "The illegal phenomenon is not just changing the nature of this little town. The people who pass through here are headed to New York, Chicago ... all over the US."

A few weeks ago, Mr. Cron says a desperate man walked up to him while he was fixing a car, and offered to buy it on the spot for $5,000 cash. Mr. Cron pointed to a tower of video cameras placed about 100 yards away by the Border Patrol.

"It's pretty clear he wanted it to help move a bunch of illegal immigrants inland, but when he saw the cameras, he suddenly thanked me and hurried off," says Cron, who lauds the minutemen for bringing attention to the understaffed and underfunded Border Patrol.

Whatever you think of illegal immigration, no American family should have to live like this:

"What makes it most disturbing now is that you can't leave a window open in summer, or leave anything unlocked at night anywhere," says Cron. He recently put bars on his windows because he found a group of illegal immigrants sleeping just inside his shop after breaking in through the glass window.

For her own piece of mind, Mrs. Garner - a stay-at-home mother who also teaches pilates and aerobic kickboxing - signed her three daughters up for an Israeli-army self-defense course. It teaches how to defend yourself without weapons. Shayne, who speaks Spanish, says the migrants do not respond to her attempts to communicate in any language, coached as they are by professional coyotes, who smuggle people across the border, to say nothing.

Right?