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ON THE BORDER
Civilian border patrols across the country have helped polarize political debate over immigration reform. As part of an occasional series, The Chronicle spends an evening on patrol with small group in California.
- Tyche Hendricks, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, December 5, 2005

Jacumba, San Diego County -- Smack up against the steel-plate border fence, a crew calling itself the California Minutemen huddled around its makeshift sandbag bunker to plan the night's strategy for stopping illegal immigrants.

The eight men and one woman, led by former Marine and retired postal worker Jim Chase, strapped on binoculars and side arms and fanned out in the dry, rocky hills of eastern San Diego County.

"Our goal is to show the people of the United States that you can shut an area down," Chase said of the border. "But it's more about sending a message. We're getting the attention of the legislatures." The group's communication hub was 56-year-old Britt Craig, a disabled Vietnam veteran like Chase. Craig was the only member whose cell phone got a signal. Anyone who spotted migrants or drug smugglers was to radio him, and he would phone the Border Patrol.

Civilian border watch groups have drawn attention to the 1,952-mile Mexico-U.S. border and illegal immigration ever since hundreds of volunteers came to monitor the Arizona border in April. More than 20 much smaller spin-off groups have stationed themselves this year from San Diego to south Texas and at spots near the Canadian border.

How effective the patrols have been at shutting the border or keeping out illegal immigrants remains an open question. Group leaders claim on their Web sites and in e-mail newsletters to have reported thousands of illegal immigrants to the Border Patrol. Local news reports tallied fewer than 100.

Border Patrol officials have discouraged the groups from patrolling at all. Grassroots opposition to them has been vociferous. And in early October, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean charged that the Minutemen "spread fear and hatred in America."

That criticism has come from many corners, and patrol groups have tempered their message and featured Mexican American members in publicity material. On Tuesday, Jim Gilchrist, co-founder of the original patrol group and leader of one of several current factions, will compete in a special election to represent coastal Orange County in Congress. He placed third of five candidates in the September primary running on the single issue of immigration reform.

Volunteers retired, committed

Britt Craig is typical of many of the recruits, in his sense of patriotism and in the fact he has time on his hands. Many patrol volunteers are retired, most are white and most are men. There were at least three Vietnam veterans among the nine volunteers at Jacumba in September.

The people who have come out for patrols across the country range from ranchers weary of illegal migrants trooping across their land to construction workers anxious about losing their jobs and nostalgic for a time when they didn't hear Spanish spoken in their neighborhoods. Many are military veterans or retired police officers.

Three times this year, Craig battened down the sailboat he calls home at the St. Augustine, Fla., marina, packed his portly black cats into his 19-year-old Ford Econoline van and headed west to join patrols.

Some 2,300 miles separate St. Augustine and this border hamlet, but the journey was therapeutic for Craig.

Border duty concludes a meandering quest he has followed since a grenade booby trap took out his left eye at age 19 in Vietnam and sent him home to a country that was ambivalent if not openly hostile toward him.

"This gives me the opportunity to get the 1945 homecoming that I didn't get in 1968," Craig said as he set up camp for the night under a piñon tree. "In my hometown, people are very, very supportive. They tell me 'Good job. Way to go!' "

This week, Craig is beginning a series of 27 one-night vigils to honor border patrol officers killed in the line of duty since 1986. Each vigil is set at a spot on the border where an officer died, he said.

Craig hooked up with Chase at the muster in Arizona, which Minuteman Civil Defense Corps founder Chris Simcox said attracted 800 volunteers over the course of April. News reports tallied the volunteers patrolling at any given time at 200.

The civilian groups have all said they are doing the job the government is neglecting, of protecting the homeland from illegal incursions.

"We have heightened the awareness of the fact that the border is a sham," Craig said. "It's dysfunctional. A border is like your skin. There's got to be a place where you stop and something else begins. A nation can't exist without a border for long."

The U.S. Border Patrol has tripled in size since 1995. It had an annual budget of $1.4 billion and made 1.2 million arrests in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30. Minutemen say they want the Border Patrol tripled again, and they are calling for a wall to be built the full length of the U.S.-Mexico border.

"All we are is supporters of immigration law," said Chase, an energetic gray-haired man with a Santa Claus belly and Teva sandals. "If we have an enemy, it's the Bush administration that's not enforcing the law."

Armed, maybe dangerous

Local leaders in border towns where militia groups are turning up have condemned the Minutemen.

In Brownsville, Texas, Mayor Eddie Treviño Jr. told the local press that the patrols are dangerous and send the wrong message to Mexico.

"Law enforcement should be left to people who are trained and experienced in these matters," he said.

Craig shook some dry cat food into a cast iron skillet and set it on the ground for his cats, Janie and Homegirl. Then he extracted an ammunition cartridge from the van and clicked a 10-round magazine into the 9mm Beretta 92 semiautomatic pistol concealed in his waistband under a Libertarian Party T-shirt.

Part of the appeal of patrolling is the outdoorsiness, said Craig, who grew up hunting and fishing near Thomasville, Ga. His experience as a paratrooper in Vietnam also gave him "a high tolerance for excitement" that scouting for illegal immigrants meets.

"There isn't much that moves me like this," he said. "I like being out in the woods. I love guns. It's very difficult to find that same thing in civilian life."

A rangy, muscular man with a ruddy complexion and a shock of blond hair under his cowboy hat, Craig wears a black patch over his left eye. The other Minutemen call him "the pirate."

He said it may have been on the Internet that he first heard about the Minutemen.

"I'm not sure exactly how I tumbled to it," he said, his voice rolling with the cadences of the Deep South. "I wasn't actively looking for something."

Illegal immigration -- which rose in the 1990s -- picked up again in 2004, after slackening slightly with the downturn in the U.S. economy in 2001. In 2003 and 2004, more unauthorized migrants entered the country than legal immigrants received green cards, the Pew Hispanic Center in Washington, D.C., found in a study released in October.

About one-third of 2005's new undocumented aliens -- from China, Ireland, Colombia, the Philippines, Mexico and other countries -- entered the country on legitimate visas but overstayed their welcome, estimates Pew center demographer Jeff Passel. The other roughly 377,000 came into the United States illegally, mainly on foot.

'Second Amendment thing'

Yet Craig's motivation to join the Minutemen was not particularly jingoistic.

"I was in Willcox, Ariz., after the Minuteman showdown had just ended, and these four kids came along," Craig recalled. "They were obviously illegals, didn't speak a word of English. They were looking for a ride, wanted to get out of Arizona. I lived in Puerto Rico so I can get by in Spanish.

"I said, 'You made it over. You're here. God bless you. Have a good life. But I just spent three weeks trying to seal the border. So I can't give you a ride. My friends would kill me.' "

In the gathering dusk, a local property owner came out to investigate the patrol. He was guardedly tolerant of Craig's presence, saying he often pursues illegal immigrants on his own and prefers nights with a full moon like the one making its way over the horizon.

Another local who gave his name only as Walt sputtered up on a rickety motor bike. He acts as a caretaker for the landowner who permitted Chase's crew to use his property. Walt railed against the threat posed to the American way of life by Mexican migrants, homosexuals and other "deviants."

Craig's two-way radio crackled to life.

"Kingfish, this is Jefe. Come in."

It was Chase, reporting the positions of the other scouts. The nine kept in touch all night but never did see any migrants to report, Craig said later.

Craig responded then settled himself on the pine needle duff beside the van. Bats whirled over the quiet hills.

"When I first went to the Arizona showdown, I looked at it as more of a Second Amendment thing. They said, 'Arm yourselves. Call yourselves Minutemen.' I came out because it was a citizens' militia, which I believe in," he said. "Militia got a bad name, but it's a good process. They don't like you to say militia, but that's what it is. We are vigilantes."

Fixing relationship with U.S.

Craig speaks with unusual candor. The booby trap in the highlands of Vietnam that claimed Craig's eye also caused nerve damage to his right leg and hand, and ruined his teenage dream of a lifetime as a soldier.

"That was the end of the world for me," Craig said. "That was my career plan, shot all to hell. After that, I never really did anything thoughtful and appropriate. I just bounced around."

He worked as a commercial fisherman, as a roadie for rock bands, as a singer performing his own country tunes on city streets ("folk music for the talk radio set," he calls it). He fathered a son and tried to remain in the boy's life, though he didn't stay with the boy's mother.

For Craig, living on the sailboat proved cheaper than paying rent. He finds work when he needs cash.

"I get a military pension," he said. "I float a genteel poverty."

It's the kind of life that allows him to pick up and volunteer to secure the border. Craig said he has met a lot of veterans among the border watch recruits, and he believes many are thinking about more than curbing uncontrolled immigration.

"In Arizona, there were an amazing number of Vietnam-era people trying to work something out," he said. "I suspect it's trying to rectify what had become a love-hate relationship with the country."

In a box of food donated by Minuteman supporters, he found a bag of hamburger buns and ate one, washing it down with 7-Up.

"I joined the army, I volunteered for the paratroopers, I volunteered for Vietnam. And I came back and I'm the Antichrist," he said, his voice catching. "This has been a really good place for me to work that out. I'm glad I lived long enough."

A coyote howled. Homegirl, who, like her owner, is missing an eye, sauntered close to get her head scratched.

"I'm a happy man," Craig said. "I've got a mission. I've got compatriots. And I've got my cats."