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Border watchers say they're coming back

But law officers see little evidence of that
By Leslie Berestein
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
January 18, 2006

Border watch activists are making their presence known on the border again, although law enforcement officers in San Diego County say they have spotted few of them in action.

The California Border Watch – the group known as California Minutemen when it operated near Campo last summer – announced the start of the new effort earlier this month to watch for migrants crossing the border after the holidays.

"I have had guys at the border 24 hours a day nonstop since July 2005," said Mike Chase, the son of Jim Chase, the ex-postal worker from Oceanside who organized the July patrols.

Chase, 36, said last week that there are five or six border watchers in the Campo area and between Tecate and Tierra del Sol, though he didn't want to give specific numbers.

Law enforcement is skeptical there are many of them, however. Sheriff's deputies say they have seen only one border watcher out daily, a homeless man who camps out in the same spot, plus one or two others on weekends.

There is no real activity, Sgt. Mike Radovich said yesterday. "They may have three, maybe four, if that."

A spokesman for the Border Patrol, Nicholas Coates, said last week that agents hadn't heard from the group, although he said people don't typically identify themselves as border watchers when they call.

"They might be out here driving around or what have you, but I don't think it's anything like in the summer," Coates said.

Neither the Sheriff's Department nor the Border Patrol have received reports about border watchers being attacked by rock-throwers, although Chase said that happened to one watcher last week.

Chase said law officers in the field know the Border Watch is active, but they don't "relay that back to their headquarters in Campo."

Small as this group's comeback might be, it is not the only border watch organization hoping to make a resurgence following last year's wave of events that drew national attention.

In Arizona, the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps recently announced that it would be patrolling there and in New Mexico this month. Affiliated border watchers in California and Texas would follow suit next month.

A man in Orange County was organizing a mid-January border watch to take place on the Mexican side of the California border, though it has proven unpopular with fellow activists.

"Some of the people are pretty down on it," said the organizer, who calls himself Roger Young but said that's not his real name. "You should see some of my private e-mails."

Young, who in a recent telephone interview said he had found 14 participants, posted a notice seeking volunteers on SaveOurState.org, an anti-illegal immigration activist Web site. The responses from other posters were enthusiastically negative.

"History hasn't seen anything so obviously foolish since the Children's Crusade in the Middle Ages," wrote one respondent who goes by the name "Cazamigrante," Spanish for migrant hunter.

Jorge A. Vargas, a law professor at the University of San Diego, said it's illegal for foreigners to engage in political activity in Mexico, "under penalty of being immediately and summarily removed from Mexico without any trial whatsoever."

Young did not reply to an e-mail last week, but on his Web site said cars were packed and people were ready to go. Last night he posted on the site that he and his companions had returned after five days.