Border volunteers descend on tourist town
Civilian posse starts 30-day patrol effort
By Jerry Kammer
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE
April 2, 2005
TOMBSTONE, Ariz. – In a town made legendary by 30 seconds of mayhem at the OK Corral, the Minuteman Project yesterday launched what organizers say will be a peaceful campaign to reinforce the Border Patrol and to seek public support for a clampdown on illegal immigration.
"We are here to present our case to the American public," said James Gilchrist, the retired Aliso Viejo accountant and Marine veteran who says he has signed up more than 1,000 volunteers for at least part of the 30-day effort in the San Pedro River Valley southwest of here.
In the face of concern from law enforcement and criticism from immigrant advocates, the Minuteman Project intends for small groups to spread out along smuggling routes and call the Border Patrol when they spot groups of immigrants filtering across the border.
In this part of Arizona, the border is marked primarily by a four-strand barbed wire fence that is frequently sliced by illegal immigrants who drive out in taxis from the Mexican border town of Naco.
Organizers insist there will be no attempt to detain possible illegal immigrants. They say volunteers who carry firearms are exercising a right guaranteed under Arizona law.
About 400 volunteers arrived yesterday on the first day of registration, organizers said. Police are not providing estimates of volunteers, and there is no independent means of checking the group's figure.
U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., received a standing ovation as he dismissed criticism from those who have called the Minutemen racists and xenophobes.
He took direct aim at President Bush's recent description of the group as "vigilantes." Mexican President Vicente Fox, who was meeting with Bush at the time last week, used the term cazamigrantes – immigrant hunters.
"We are saying to our government, 'Please enforce the law,' " Tancredo said. "That is not a radical idea. That is not a vigilante idea. It is an American concept: the rule of law."
Television commentator Angela "Bay" Buchanan praised the Minutemen for sending a message that "we're not going to sit by and let America slip away" in a tide of illegal immigration.
"Mr. President, you have failed America. Mr. President, do your constitutional duty," said Buchanan, leader of Team America, a political action committee dedicated to immigration policy.
Yesterday's kickoff in this tourist-conscious town was a media extravaganza that mixed the borderland activists – some of them carrying firearms – with the Old West actors who tote fake guns and stroll down the boardwalk in front of Big Nose Kate's Saloon.
"We're used to the gunfights, but it looks like the tourists are getting something extra," said town librarian Jody Hoffman.
Near her desk is a painting of the covered wagons that rolled through this country nearly a century and a half ago. Back then it was Apache leaders such as Cochise, for whom this southeastern Arizona county is named, who expressed bewilderment at the arrivals.
Jim Chase, an Oceanside man who is among the Minuteman Project's leaders, said teams of four would be sent out to observe the border.
In the meantime, many of the volunteers are renting $5-a-night rooms at the Miracle Valley Bible College, about two miles north of the border, and some are camping on the grounds of the dilapidated campus. The group's communication center is set up at the college.
Outside a meeting hall in Tombstone, about a dozen protesters beat pots and pans while a troupe of Aztec-style dancers beat drums and spun rhythmically in the street. Other protesters carried signs reading, "No human is illegal" and "borders kill." Dave Mondragon, 23, of New Mexico hoisted a sign proclaiming, "You're the immigrant."
There appeared to be little tension between the opposing sides. But black-uniformed Arizona rangers, a volunteer group that had been deputized by the town marshal, lined the streets. They are part of a large mobilization of local, state and federal officers who are poised to deal with any confrontation.
Gilchrist acknowledged he cannot guarantee that no troublemakers will infiltrate his group. But as he climbed up a stairwell for an impromptu news conference, he said he embraced the nonviolent credo of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and he turned the criticism back on Washington.
"All I can tell you is that our screening process is a lot better than the federal government's screening process for illegal aliens and terrorists who have killed Americans," he said.
The Minuteman Project's most outspoken critic, University of California Riverside ethnic studies professor Armando Navarro, said he is concerned that rogue elements on either side of the controversy could whip up an incident as sudden as the dust devils that whirl across the desert floor.
"We see the potential for a powder keg situation developing over the next few weeks," Navarro said Thursday evening. He had been meeting with other activists in Agua Prieta, a Mexican border town that has boomed as a jumping-off point for illegal immigration in the decade since Operation Gatekeeper tightened the border at and near San Diego.
The Grand Canyon State makes up less than a fifth of the 1,950-mile international border. But of the 1.1 million people apprehended by the Border Patrol on illegal immigration charges last year, 52 percent were caught in Arizona.
Navarro, a former Army officer and longtime political activist, said he is doing "everything possible" to tamp down the agitation among Latinos who see the Minutemen as guided more by racism than patriotism.
He called the Minuteman campaign "a nativist reaction against us Latinos because we are becoming the new majority."
Mexico City television reporter Jose Martin Samano tried to capture the town's mood as he taped a stand-up report during a shootout at Helldorado Town, a tourist attraction where the good guy always wins in front of fake storefronts and saloons.
"There are two shows taking place today in Tombstone, Ariz.," said Samano, of TV Azteca. "One uses fake bullets. The other is using real arms."
Acknowledging that much of the Mexican press has encouraged the distorted notion that the cazamigrantes are hunting immigrants like so many deer, he said: "The people of Mexico are very worried. . . . They think the Minutemen are real hunters, without pity."
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/tijuana/20050402-9999-1n2minute.html
Civilian posse starts 30-day patrol effort
By Jerry Kammer
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE
April 2, 2005
TOMBSTONE, Ariz. – In a town made legendary by 30 seconds of mayhem at the OK Corral, the Minuteman Project yesterday launched what organizers say will be a peaceful campaign to reinforce the Border Patrol and to seek public support for a clampdown on illegal immigration.
"We are here to present our case to the American public," said James Gilchrist, the retired Aliso Viejo accountant and Marine veteran who says he has signed up more than 1,000 volunteers for at least part of the 30-day effort in the San Pedro River Valley southwest of here.
In the face of concern from law enforcement and criticism from immigrant advocates, the Minuteman Project intends for small groups to spread out along smuggling routes and call the Border Patrol when they spot groups of immigrants filtering across the border.
In this part of Arizona, the border is marked primarily by a four-strand barbed wire fence that is frequently sliced by illegal immigrants who drive out in taxis from the Mexican border town of Naco.
Organizers insist there will be no attempt to detain possible illegal immigrants. They say volunteers who carry firearms are exercising a right guaranteed under Arizona law.
About 400 volunteers arrived yesterday on the first day of registration, organizers said. Police are not providing estimates of volunteers, and there is no independent means of checking the group's figure.
U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., received a standing ovation as he dismissed criticism from those who have called the Minutemen racists and xenophobes.
He took direct aim at President Bush's recent description of the group as "vigilantes." Mexican President Vicente Fox, who was meeting with Bush at the time last week, used the term cazamigrantes – immigrant hunters.
"We are saying to our government, 'Please enforce the law,' " Tancredo said. "That is not a radical idea. That is not a vigilante idea. It is an American concept: the rule of law."
Television commentator Angela "Bay" Buchanan praised the Minutemen for sending a message that "we're not going to sit by and let America slip away" in a tide of illegal immigration.
"Mr. President, you have failed America. Mr. President, do your constitutional duty," said Buchanan, leader of Team America, a political action committee dedicated to immigration policy.
Yesterday's kickoff in this tourist-conscious town was a media extravaganza that mixed the borderland activists – some of them carrying firearms – with the Old West actors who tote fake guns and stroll down the boardwalk in front of Big Nose Kate's Saloon.
"We're used to the gunfights, but it looks like the tourists are getting something extra," said town librarian Jody Hoffman.
Near her desk is a painting of the covered wagons that rolled through this country nearly a century and a half ago. Back then it was Apache leaders such as Cochise, for whom this southeastern Arizona county is named, who expressed bewilderment at the arrivals.
Jim Chase, an Oceanside man who is among the Minuteman Project's leaders, said teams of four would be sent out to observe the border.
In the meantime, many of the volunteers are renting $5-a-night rooms at the Miracle Valley Bible College, about two miles north of the border, and some are camping on the grounds of the dilapidated campus. The group's communication center is set up at the college.
Outside a meeting hall in Tombstone, about a dozen protesters beat pots and pans while a troupe of Aztec-style dancers beat drums and spun rhythmically in the street. Other protesters carried signs reading, "No human is illegal" and "borders kill." Dave Mondragon, 23, of New Mexico hoisted a sign proclaiming, "You're the immigrant."
There appeared to be little tension between the opposing sides. But black-uniformed Arizona rangers, a volunteer group that had been deputized by the town marshal, lined the streets. They are part of a large mobilization of local, state and federal officers who are poised to deal with any confrontation.
Gilchrist acknowledged he cannot guarantee that no troublemakers will infiltrate his group. But as he climbed up a stairwell for an impromptu news conference, he said he embraced the nonviolent credo of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and he turned the criticism back on Washington.
"All I can tell you is that our screening process is a lot better than the federal government's screening process for illegal aliens and terrorists who have killed Americans," he said.
The Minuteman Project's most outspoken critic, University of California Riverside ethnic studies professor Armando Navarro, said he is concerned that rogue elements on either side of the controversy could whip up an incident as sudden as the dust devils that whirl across the desert floor.
"We see the potential for a powder keg situation developing over the next few weeks," Navarro said Thursday evening. He had been meeting with other activists in Agua Prieta, a Mexican border town that has boomed as a jumping-off point for illegal immigration in the decade since Operation Gatekeeper tightened the border at and near San Diego.
The Grand Canyon State makes up less than a fifth of the 1,950-mile international border. But of the 1.1 million people apprehended by the Border Patrol on illegal immigration charges last year, 52 percent were caught in Arizona.
Navarro, a former Army officer and longtime political activist, said he is doing "everything possible" to tamp down the agitation among Latinos who see the Minutemen as guided more by racism than patriotism.
He called the Minuteman campaign "a nativist reaction against us Latinos because we are becoming the new majority."
Mexico City television reporter Jose Martin Samano tried to capture the town's mood as he taped a stand-up report during a shootout at Helldorado Town, a tourist attraction where the good guy always wins in front of fake storefronts and saloons.
"There are two shows taking place today in Tombstone, Ariz.," said Samano, of TV Azteca. "One uses fake bullets. The other is using real arms."
Acknowledging that much of the Mexican press has encouraged the distorted notion that the cazamigrantes are hunting immigrants like so many deer, he said: "The people of Mexico are very worried. . . . They think the Minutemen are real hunters, without pity."
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/tijuana/20050402-9999-1n2minute.html