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Minuteman Meltdown?
Posted on Monday, February 18 @ 07:45:35 EST
Topic: Minuteman Project Minutemen border
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 ALIPAC NOTE: This article contains several inaccurate statements. Most are made by Jim Gilcrist of the former Minuteman Project. We have contacted the author and asked for the source of the other inaccurate statement about ALIPAC endorsing a Presidential candidate. This newspaper has released a corrected version that removes the false claim of our endorsing a Presidential candidate.
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Traditionally tight-knit anti-illegal immigration organizations are roiled in internal conflict.
Struggles for power and finances have led leaders in the movement to
split ties with Jim Gilchrist, the founder of the Minuteman Project.
Bickering continues over who has control of the original Minuteman
organization and once faithful members are now deserting the group.
Barbed e-mails and accusations fly among the former Minuteman
loyalists.
“I’m fighting on three fronts,” Gilchrist said. “I’m fighting the
Federal government, I’m fighting the reconquistas, and I’m fighting the
people defecting from my own organization.”
Gilchrist’s Minuteman Project, which has become nearly synonymous
with the anti-illegal immigration movement, is under fire from many
other like-minded groups.
William Gheen, of the North Carolina-based Americans for Legal
Immigration political action committee (ALIPAC), said Gilchrist is a
threat to the anti-illegal immigration movement. Gheen said people in
his organization receive bizarre e-mails from the Minuteman founder.
“We see Gilchrist as prone to act against the good of the
movement,” Gheen said. “He has a pattern of broken alliances and
relationships.”
Topics: ALIPAC, Americans for Legal Immigration, Minuteman Project, Jim Gilchrist, border security, conflicts, groups, organizations, Presidential candidates
February 16, 2008
By Josh Aden
Los Angeles Times
Gilchrist said groups like ALIPAC see him as competition for fundraising dollars.
(False: ALIPAC does not engage in the mass marketing fundraising that Gilchrist and Minuteman Project do. We get by on less than 1/3 of the funds he raises and we conduct many project while no significant activist activity is present currently in Minuteman Project)
“As long as the Minuteman Project exists, we take away from their donor base,” Gilchrist said.
Huntington Beach resident and California Coalition for Immigration
Reform founder Barbara Coe was one of the former Minutemen who wrestled
the organization away from Gilchrist in 2007.
Coe was one of first to rush to the border with the Minutemen in
2005, but she said the unity that once united the activists has
devolved into internal strife.
“I am very distressed about the shadow that has been cast on the movement,” Coe said.
Coe said the struggles make it difficult for anti-illegal
immigration groups to present a united front, limiting the
effectiveness of the movement.
Gilchrist sees the same phenomenon. “You’ve got every group
attacking every other group,” he said. “90 percent of our time is spent
on infighting, and 10 percent is devoted to the issue.”
(False: Most of the groups and organizations in our movement get along and are working together on projects. There are conflicts among a small number of groups, but Gilchrist and Minuteman Project are the source of about half of the few that do exist.)
The bickering is surprising considering how close anti-illegal
immigration activists have traditionally been. Groups such as
Immigration Watchdog and Save Our State have large online forums that
keep the groups in close contact.
Laguna Beach activist Eileen Garcia has been fighting to shut-down
Laguna’s Day Workers Center. She has organized multiple protests
against the center.
Garcia said the groups’ close contact helps in organizing large
demonstrations. Garcia founded Gilchrist’s Angels, a women’s auxiliary
of the Minutemen.
She too split with Gilchrist’s organization in 2007, founding the Betsy Ross Patriots — another anti-illegal women’s group.
Illegal immigration is one of the hot-button issues of the
presidential primary elections, thanks in part to anti-illegal
immigration groups and activists who have been touting the issue for
the past several years.
The efforts of various border enforcement advocacy groups have
brought the issue to the forefront of political debate — especially in
Republican circles. Yet as those efforts have the fractures within the
once tight-knit coalition of anti illegal-immigration groups have
became even more apparent during the presidential primaries.
Garcia supported Mitt Romney, as did Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a vocal
opponent of illegal immigration in Congress. Many anti-illegal
activists like Coe and Gheen supported Ron Paul’s candidacy.
(False: We have written to inquire where this false information about William Gheen came from. ALIPAC had a clear policy of not endorsing a Presidential candidate while pointing out that McCain, Huckabee, and Giuliani were pro amnesty, while Paul, Romney, Hunter, Tancredo, and Thompson were opposed to amnesty for illegal aliens. Since ALIPAC has this policy on clear display and since ALIPAC did not provide any such statement to the LA Times, the newspaper has released a corrected version that removes this paragraph.)
Gilchrist has thrown his support behind former Arkansas Governor
Mike Huckabee. The endorsement has earned Gilchrist more criticism from
within the anti-illegal immigration movement.
Gheen and leaders from more than 80 immigration activist organizations signed a letter decrying Gilchrist’s endorsement.
“We denounce Jim Gilchrist’s solo endorsement of a pro-amnesty and
open-borders candidate for president. Mr. Gilchrist does not speak for
us,” the letter read.
Gilchrist said he was contacted by the Huckabee campaign and asked
to come aboard. Gilchrist said he asked campaign members to outline
Huckabee’s immigration policies before he signed on.
The Huckabee campaign responded by posting a detailed immigration plan on its website.
Huckabee campaign manager Ed Rollins said the Huckabee immigration
plan is to build a fence within 18 months, deport illegal immigrants
and make legal immigration faster and easier. Rollins said they believe
they have the best plan for illegal immigration, but sometimes
passionate groups split with leaders.
“In any group that has strong emotions, which certainly the
Minutemen and others have, there’s always leadership battles. There’s
always people that don’t like people that get too much attention,”
Rollins said.
Gilchrist said he supports Huckabee as a more moderate candidate than Ron Paul, who is popular with his critics.
He said Paul supporters are generally of the ultra-right mentality.
The extremism of this faction of the anti-illegal immigration movement is a factor in its demise, Gilchrist said.
“While Ron Paul himself is a pretty good guy, his supporters are
lunatics,” Gilchrist said. “They’re as dangerous and vile as the
reconquistas on the left.”
(False: Most Ron Paul supporters are patriotic Americans that are deeply concerned about issue and are in no way comparative to illegal alien supporting Reconquistas on the left.)
The presidential primaries are just one example of an issue causing
rifts within the border enforcement movement, but some activists say
the differences may not be such a bad thing.
“Internal turmoil and dissension is always the sign of a growing and expanding movement,” Rohrabacher said
According to Garcia, the movement is fracturing because illegal
immigration has become a major issue that no longer needs a united
front to survive.
“A lot of established groups are starting to split up because it’s
much more mainstream,” Garcia said. “There’s no longer a need to place
yourself into a niche and say, ‘I’m a Minuteman’ or ‘I’m a member of
Save Our State.’ All concerned citizens of America can call themselves
Minutemen.”
Rohrabacher agrees with that assessment. He said upstart movements have to stick together.
“When a movement is small and inconsequential, people tend to get
along better because it’s almost family-like,” Rohrabacher said.
MINUTE DETAILS
Jim Gilchrist of Aliso Viejo and Chris Simcox founded the Minuteman
Project in 2005. They organized citizen patrols along the
Arizona-Mexico border. The action shined a spotlight on the issue of
illegal immigration.
Simcox cut ties to the group later that year over financial
disputes and founded the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps. Gilchrist
changed tactics from physically watching the border to trying to
influence public policy and opinion.
DISCUSS THIS ARTICLE WITH OUR ONLINE ACTIVISTS AT...
http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-104221.html
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