Thread: MINUTEMEN GIVEN PARTIAL CREDIT IN DEFEAT OF IMMIGRATION BILL

'Minuteman' movement given partial credit for killing immigration bill

By: EDWARD SIFUENTES - Staff Writer

NORTH COUNTY ---- The "Minuteman" movement that grew out of a few hundred people in lawn chairs watching the border for illegal immigrants two years ago is now being given partial credit by some analysts in helping to defeat an immigration bill last month.

The wide-ranging measure, which would have helped legalize millions of illegal immigrants, was endorsed by President Bush and key senators from both parties. But it lost to an energetic movement of anti-illegal immigration activist groups, including the Minutemen movement, roused by talk radio and TV hosts, who called the bill amnesty for people who broke the law, analysts say.

Opinion varies on how much influence the Minutemen and their supporters had, but many say that they can claim some responsibility for the bill's defeat.

"They were at the right place at the right time," said Steven Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington-based research organization that favors stricter immigration policies. "I think they fed and rode the debate."

The bill offered lawful status to as many as 12 million illegal immigrants living in the U.S., while fortifying the border and workplaces against future illegal arrivals. Crafted by a group led by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., and Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., to satisfy divergent interests on both sides of the political spectrum, it ended up pleasing none enough.

Many Republicans were fundamentally opposed to giving people who came to the U.S. illegally a chance to gain lawful status, while many Democrats felt that the hurdles those immigrants would face ---- from steep fines and long waits for trips home ---- were unworkable and unfair.

At the time, Minutemen groups delivered blow-by-blow accounts of the Senate debate to members through e-mail networks. Many of them said they distrusted claims that the bill would help fortify the border and feared that it would deliver only a thinly veiled amnesty program.

Due to next year's presidential elections, most analysts say that Congress is unlikely to take up a major immigration reform bill in the next two years.

Minutemen activists say they stand ready to oppose any smaller-scale efforts to legalize immigrants, which are expected for students and agriculture workers under various proposals.

The Minuteman movement was born two years ago when Jim Gilchrist, an Orange County accountant, launched his Minuteman Project, a civilian border-watch group that traveled to Arizona in April 2005, for a month-long stakeout of the border.

The vigil, which received international attention, inspired similar groups around the country, including the North County-based San Diego Minutemen. They are part of a loose-knit network of groups calling themselves "Minutemen," but who are linked more by ideology than formal organizational structures.

Organizers of the border-watch protest and others say it had led to increased coverage and public awareness of illegal immigration in the nation.

In North County, San Diego Minutemen have staged numerous protests at day-labor sites, migrant camps and city halls in North County against illegal immigration. More recently, their members participated in rallies against the Senate immigration bill and mass call-in efforts attempting to influence senators to vote against the bill.

Jeff Schwilk, a retired Marine who leads the local group, said the Minutemen's efforts made a difference.

"We obviously fought amnesty very hard with everything we had," he said. "The Minutemen rose to the occasion and made thousands of calls, faxes and e-mails telling their elected officials to secure the border first."

"The John & Ken Show," a popular talk-radio show critical of the bill, asked listeners to call Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat who supported the measure. All of Feinstein's phone lines were clogged with calls from opponents of the bill and supporters seeking to undermine the challenge.

Kurt Bardella, a spokesman for Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-Solana Beach, and an outspoken critic of the bill, said that his office had received hundreds of phone calls in the days leading to the debate. Though the office did not keep a tally, Bardella said that an "overwhelming" number of the callers opposed the bill.

The San Diego Minutemen claims a roster of over 500 members and supporters, but attracts anywhere from a dozen to about 40 people to its nearly weekly protests.

Schwilk and other members of his group traveled to Washington in April to participate in a protest, called Hold Their Feet to the Fire, organized by the Federation for American Immigration Reform. The advocacy group favors stricter immigration policies, including tougher border security and reducing legal immigration.

Critics of the Minutemen, including President Bush, have called them "vigilantes." Some immigrant rights groups, including the National Immigration Forum, say that the Minutemen are part of a small, but loud, segment of the population.

"Sometimes, you confuse who's the loudest with who's the largest," said Douglas Rivlin, spokesman for the National Immigration Forum.

Some political insiders and policy researchers said there is little evidence to gauge the Minutemen's effect on the senators. But they are credited giving talk radio and TV talk-show hosts fodder through weekly rallies in towns across the country.

"What they did was, they helped make it a national issue," said Duane Dichiara, a Republican political consultant who has advised numerous North County candidates and elected officials. "What all this media attention did was wake up people like my parents, middle-class Americans, and angered them."

Dichiara said the Minutemen's effect on elected officials was less clear. He said that once the Senate bill came up, most elected officials had made up their minds on immigration.

"After you fall in the pool, you know it's wet," he said.

Professor James Gimpel, who studies government and immigration policy at the University of Maryland, said the Minutemen probably influenced the Senate, but there has been no research to measure how large or how small that influence was.

"I think that it was part of a broader grass-roots group of organizations. I think it had some impact," Gimpel said. "I have no way to give a good percentage, but I don't think that their participation was trivial at all."

Gilchrist, the founder of the Minuteman Project, said that he had no doubt about the movement's influence.

"The Minuteman Project did more in two years than a dozen larger, more established groups have done in 20 years," Gilchrist said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. Contact staff writer Edward Sifuentes at (760) 740-3511 or esifuentes@nctimes.com.

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/07 ... _14_07.txt

Add Your Comments or Letter to the Editor

Skip wrote on Jul 15, 2007 1:37 AM:

" Please do not forget to give credit to the American Public, and the thousands of groups springing up all over America. Americans for Legal Immigration (ALIPAC), Federation for Immigration Reform (FAIR), Closed Borders (Yahoo Group), Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS), Illegal Aliens.U.S. American Patrol, the American Immigration Control Foundation, Americans for Better Immigration (ABI), California coalition for immigration reform, center for immigration studies, Friends of the Border Patrol, Hire American Citizens. Org, Hispanics for secure borders, Justice for the Border Patrol, Latino Americans for Immigration Reform, Let’s Build our Own Wall, Let’s Take Back America, Limits to growth, Mothers Against Illegal Aliens, Negative Population Growth, No Invaders. Org, Numbers USA, Ohio, Jobs & Justice P.A.C., Project USA, Protect Arizona Now, San Diego Border Alert, Save Our State - California (SOS), Secured Borders U.S.A., Stand up for America, Stop Illegal Immigration...Now! Stop SPP & NAU, Team America, the Heritage Foundation, Tom Tancredo, U.S.. Immigration Reform PAC, United Patriots of America, USA Border Alert, USA for Americans, Veterans for Secure Borders, www. Stop Amnesty. US, and You Don't Speak For Me. There are literally thousands of Grass Rootsâ€