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California Race
Highlights Split
On Immigration
By MIRIAM JORDAN
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
October 18, 2005

LAKE FOREST, Calif. -- Last year, retired accountant Jim Gilchrist started a volunteer group that vowed to catch illegal immigrants sneaking across the Mexico-U.S. border. Scarcely a year later, he's vying for the only vacant seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, running an unlikely campaign that is showcasing deep political divisions over the immigration issue.

Mr. Gilchrist is the co-founder of the controversial border-watch group called the Minuteman Project, which has caused a stir by sending citizen patrols to border areas with the goal of stopping illegal crossings. The group has been branded "vigilantes" by President Bush but embraced by some prominent Republicans, including California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
[Jim Gilchrist]

Against that backdrop, Mr. Gilchrist this fall entered a special election in Orange County, Calif., to succeed Christopher Cox, the Republican congressman tapped to head the Securities and Exchange Commission. Though he had only a fraction of his chief rival's funding and carried the banner of a minor political group, the American Independent Party, Mr. Gilchrist's hard line on immigration resonated enough with voters to force Republican State Sen. John Campbell into a runoff in December. In a field of 17, Mr. Gilchrist got 15% of the vote on Oct. 6, compared with 46% for the millionaire car salesman.

The success of Mr. Gilchrist's single-issue campaign reflects more than the mood of the 48th congressional district in Southern California's conservative heartland. It serves as a metaphor for the deep schism among conservative voters nationally -- and within the Republican party leadership -- over what to do with 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S.

"This election is a wakeup call for the national Republican party and Bush," says Louis De Sipio, a professor of political science at the University of California at Irvine. "It demonstrates there is a core of the Republican electorate that is very motivated by the immigration issue."

Economic conservatives tend to favor a guest-worker program proposed by President Bush that ultimately would legalize many illegal immigrants. They also favor offering certain benefits to immigrants who lack green cards. Mr. Campbell, for one, supports issuing driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants in California, as well as allowing high-school graduates who are illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. at a young age to pay in-state fees for college. Meanwhile, cultural conservatives vehemently oppose the Bush proposal, which they deem a veiled amnesty that will encourage more Latin Americans to enter the U.S. illegally.

Earlier this month, 82 Republican members of Congress signed a letter to Mr. Bush indicating they would vote against the immigration reform he has proposed. But the only national Republican leader who has thus far openly endorsed Mr. Gilchrist is Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo, who also has made illegal immigration his calling card. Many other Republicans agree with his views, says Mr. Gilchrist, but he adds that he prefers not to mention their names.
QUESTION OF THE DAY

[QoD]
Which issue has been most detrimental to GOP prospects? Cast your vote.

New public-opinion data, generated by the Republican polling firm Tarrance Group, indicate that Republican voters nationwide don't necessarily agree with a deportation- and enforcement-only immigration policy. Instead they favor solutions that will deal with both future immigrants and the millions of undocumented workers already here. The national poll of 800 likely Republican voters, released yesterday, found that only 16% want to stop the flow of illegal immigrants entirely. Nearly 80% would support an enforcement package that increases penalties for employers, registers workers and -- provided those workers pay taxes, learn English and stay on the right side of the law -- offers a path to eventual citizenship.

During his campaign, Mr. Gilchrist stuck to generalities that grabbed headlines. Invoking his experience as the leader of the Minuteman Project, his message was simple: Beef up enforcement at the border and in the interior of the U.S. to solve the "immigration crisis."

Last week, in an interview at his campaign headquarters in Lake Forest and during a discussion with graduate students at Claremont University in Pomona, the candidate spoke more bluntly and in greater detail about his views on immigration, race and multiculturalism in the U.S. He said he is concerned that the current wave of Spanish-speaking newcomers isn't assimilating. Multiculturalism can disintegrate into "this culture clashing with that culture," the candidate said, which is "the way to destroy this country."

His supporters are bound by "politically correct paralysis" not to speak out, he added. But they are tired of pressing "1" for English for service over the phone. They also don't want their tax dollars going to educate children of illegal immigrants, he said, and they worry about "criminal aliens" in their midst. He warned the U.S. could "end up like Bangladesh or some overpopulated country" if it doesn't put a stop to illegal immigration.

Mr. Gilchrist's journey from retirement in a gated community in Aliso Viejo to the dusty, hot border began after 9/11. Obsessed with terrorism, the Vietnam veteran said he started thinking about how to protect the U.S. "I would tell my wife, 'I'm going down to Starbucks to work on my project,' " he recalled.

The Minuteman Project was born on Oct. 1, 2004. Mr. Gilchrist named the group after the Revolutionary-era Minutemen who battled the British redcoats. This past April, about 750 Minutemen gathered along the 23-mile Arizona-Mexico border, the main corridor for illegal entry. Since then, though, only a few dozen volunteers have gathered a few times along the borders with Mexico and Canada, where they have faced protests from immigrant advocacy groups. Mr. Gilchrist reckons his group has assisted in the arrest of 800 undocumented immigrants, in part by alerting the border patrol to its sightings.

Despite his surprise showing in the primary, Mr. Gilchrist has little chance of winning the December runoff and must contend with widely divergent views of the Minutemen's mission. Some civil-rights groups consider the group racist. And while Gov. Schwarzenegger has lauded the group for trying to tackle a problem that the federal government is neglecting, he has endorsed Mr. Campbell.

Turnout, though, is traditionally low in special elections, meaning that voters fixated on a single issue like immigration can have a greater impact. And the Gilchrist campaign has gained momentum almost overnight. His campaign manager, Howie Morgan, says that the campaign had no phone, air conditioning or other vital infrastructure when he arrived in California in mid-August.

"We turned this thing around. Now, it isn't even local anymore," he declares, touting recent appearances on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News and noting that journalists from France, home to anti-immigrant politician Jean-Marie Le Pen, recently trailed Mr. Gilchrist. The campaign aims to raise $500,000 for the special election, he says, after spending $200,000 in the primary.

Write to Miriam Jordan at miriam.jordan@wsj.com