Minuteman volunteers heading to border for annual spring watch


By Arthur H. Rotstein
ASSOCIATED PRESS

12:31 p.m. March 27, 2008

TUCSON, Ariz. – Volunteers who intermittently stake out portions of the southern Arizona desert hoping to spot and report suspected illegal immigrants will begin another monthlong operation this weekend.
Members of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps will stage their annual spring border watch operation for the fourth year southwest of Tucson, near Arivaca and the port of entry at Sasabe – an area popular with smugglers bringing illegal immigrants across the Mexican border. Other group members plan border watches in Texas, California and Washington.

It actually will be the fifth year for a number of volunteers who began with the Minuteman Project in April 2004 – an organization started by Jim Gilchrist, a one-time California accountant who joined forces with Chris Simcox's Civil Homeland Defense, then based in Tombstone, Ariz.

The phenomenon of ordinary citizens sitting in lawn chairs or pickups out in the desert looking for illegal immigrants raised the country's consciousness over its porous border with Mexico.

It also helped prompt a federal government effort toward beefed-up border security and was a factor in focusing significant opposition that helped doom proposed comprehensive immigration reform last year.

Within months of the 2004 border watch kickoff, however, Gilchrist and Simcox split and headed separate organizations.

Simcox's Minuteman Civil Defense Corps has nearly 12,000 members nationwide today, but most now focus on dealing with local legislative issues and interior enforcement of laws targeting illegal immigrants. The number involved in border watch operations in the past year has remained static at some 1,200 to 1,400, he said.

Simcox said the calls from his followers to the Border Patrol since 2003 have resulted in close to 14,000 illegal immigrants apprehended.

Arizona remains the busiest point for illegal entries on the border.

Dove Haber, a spokeswoman in the Border Patrol's Tucson sector, said the Minutemen observe and report without impeding law enforcement officers.

The Border Patrol welcomes the assistance of anyone calling to report suspected illegal entry, she said, adding that the Minutemen continually have adhered to appropriate standards – avoiding trying to catch illegal crossers themselves.

The director of a human rights organization offered a different assessment.

“Are they kicking it off again on April Fool's Day?â€