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Local news Tuesday, November 1, 2005

Minutemen leave area satisfied but bored

Louie Gilot
El Paso Times

HACHITA, N.M. -- Volunteers who came from all parts of the United States to patrol the Southwest border looking for undocumented immigrants this month have packed up their lounge chairs and their guns and driven their recreational vehicles and trucks home.

They said that they were generally satisfied that their monthlong operation unfolded without a hitch.

But many got bored.

"In some ways, I am disappointed. In other ways, not so," Ray Thomson, a Columbus, N.M., retiree and one of the few locals who joined the New Mexico chapter of the Minutemen Civil Defense Corp, said inside the community center in Hachita, N.M.

"Nobody is coming through. We have generation three night-vision (goggles). We can detect anybody coming across the desert and our night set-ups have yielded absolutely nothing," Thomson said. "We found more people during the day by accident."

The group, which began patrols Oct. 1 and made reports to the U.S. Border Patrol, made 20 calls to the agency.

Border Patrol statistics for the month showed that about 10,200 undocumented immigrants were caught last month in the El Paso sector, which covers El Paso County and all of New Mexico. In October of last year, fewer than 7,000 immigrants were caught.

Border Patrol officials attribute the increase in apprehensions to an increase in personnel assigned to the sector -- 305 new agents and 105 agents temporarily reassigned -- and a joint surveillance operation with the U.S. Army.

"There is no way to really know if (the Minutemen) had an impact, but we did receive calls (from them) and made apprehensions. We can't say how many," said Doug Mosier, the Border Patrol spokesman in El Paso.

The Minutemen believe their presence prompted officials to rethink border security and add manpower on the border.

The volunteer patrols may continue.

In Fabens, some volunteers with the Texas Minutemen said they would stay behind and keep patrolling throughout the winter. In Hachita, volunteers said they wanted to come back to New Mexico for one weekend each month.

Last month, the patrollers were not in the hundreds, as predicted, but in the dozens.

In Hachita, 200 volunteers had signed up, but there were only 20 to 40 patrollers on the ground at any time. In Fabens, less than a dozen volunteers patrolled.

Fernando Garcia, director of the Border Network for Human Rights, said residents of the Lower Valley who had been worried about violent clashes with the Minutemen outsiders were quickly reassured.

"They said they didn't see anyone. They didn't even know that they really were there," Garcia said. "We don't believe (the Minutemen) are the mainstream vision of America. They would have had more people. It is a creation of a small, fearful sector of the population."

The Minutemen, however, firmly believe they represent the majority viewpoint.

Tom McDaniel and Fred Clarke came to volunteer in Hachita from Littletown, Colo.

McDaniel called the Minutemen "visionaries."

"We're forcing the politicians to guard our border from people coming into our country and getting social services the taxpayers pay for," he said after a chilly morning last week spent sitting on a rock with binoculars. "It makes you feel good, like you did something for your country."

"It's very fulfilling," Clarke said.

McDaniel and Clarke are civil engineers and former co-workers.

Volunteers in Hachita reported having contact with four undocumented immigrants -- two hitchhikers picked up by a volunteer who was later kicked out by the group and a mother and her baby who went to a volunteer for help. In the Lower Valley, Minutemen volunteers reported hostile gestures from women on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande who appeared to be trying to cross the border illegally.

Minutemen volunteers called the police three times against observers from the American Civil Liberties Union. In New Mexico, volunteers said ACLU volunteers tried to run a Minutemen volunteer off the road and rammed a fence. ACLU officials denied both incidents and no one was arrested.

In Tornillo, Minutemen officials called the Sheriff's Office when ACLU volunteers wandered onto the private property of a farmer who allowed the Minutemen -- but not the ACLU -- the use of his land. ACLU officials said they did not realize they were on private property and left when asked. They said they would continue to monitor the Minutemen's activities.