Minutemen At ACLU Meeting for Illegal Aliens in Costa Mesa

Due to some excellent recon by Minuteman (name deleted), a group of Minutemen, led by Jim Gilchist, attended a meeting organized by the ACLU to encourage illegal aliens to protest the Mayor Mansoor’s plan to have the city police coordinate with ICE.

The meeting was lead by female attorney from the ACLU, Benito Acosta, recently arrested at the Cost Mesa City Council meeting, and John Earl a Huntington Beach “Socialist” who apparently did not get the memo from Stalin that the whole thing did not work out after all. Earl also co-operated with John Campbell in a smear campaign ageist Jim Gilchrist during the recent special election.

Approximately 1/3 of the attendees were Minutemen. They moved to the rear of the room at the request of Benito, to better accommodate local residents who had brought children. Earl and Acosta were very surprised and agitated to see the Minutemen and a tense meeting was held outside.

The meeting, which was held in Spanish, began with a general explanation of immigration law in the United States. Several of the Minutemen present speak Spanish. One interpreted for the rest. There were complaints that the translating was “disruptive.” This, from the same groups who refuse to speck English at City Council Meetings and insist on translators.

It was explained that while it was illegal to cross into the United States it was not a violation to be here. Special order 40 was lauded. The very small number of officers enforcing immigration was noted. It was noted the police of the City of Costa Mesa currently have no authority to enforce immigration law.

The Memorandum of Understanding proposed between the City of Costa Mesa and ICE was explained.

While there was no actual encouragement to actually break the law, there was much talk of how people would be afraid to co-operate with the police. It was stated the law would lead to poor relations between the police and the immigrant community and racial profiling. Domestic violence was mentioned several times.

The costs were described as being very high. No estimates were produced, either of the costs of the program or of possible offsets.

No connection was made as to why the police would randomly pull people over, as just being in the US illegally is not a criminal violation. This would seem akin to pulling someone over for doing the speed limit. There was no explanation as to where this new authority would come from as neither the local police nor ICE has it now.

The people were encouraged to “let their voice be heard.” Street protesting was encouraged. Flyers were passed out with the information for the City Council Meeting. People were encouraged to attend and speak. The flyers also had contact information for the Mayor and City Council Members, and again, they were urged to “let their voice be heard.” Entering the country legally, becoming a citizen and letting their voice be heard though voting was not mentioned as an option.







Gilchrist and 30 Year Costa Mesa Resident