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Ex-Gilbert councilman patrols with Minutemen
Petersen convinced 'you have to stop the flow'

Mike Walbert
The Arizona Republic
Nov. 2, 2005 12:00 AM

It was a pitch-black night in early October, just the kind that makes it hard to adjust your eyes.

Dave Petersen sat in silence near the U.S.-Mexico border, southwest of Tucson, watching shooting stars. Then he began to hear a noise.

"You hear what sounds like a crowd coming," he recalled in an interview with the Gilbert Republic last week. advertisement

It was about 9:15.

Petersen, a former Gilbert town councilman, had been stationed alongside three other men as part of the controversial Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, the largest civilian border patrol movement in the country. His border trip, Petersen said, was a chance to come face to face with Arizona's ongoing struggle to stem illegal immigration.

And two hours in, Petersen was about to get what he bargained for.

The noise grew louder, and soon Petersen and his three post mates found themselves 25 yards away from a group of about 30 undocumented immigrants who crossed into Arizona.

Petersen and crew shined their flashlights toward the noise. And that's when the mad scramble began.

"Boom! They're running scared," Petersen recalled. "They're running and diving and crashing."

During the chaos, the group radioed into Minuteman headquarters, and about 45 minutes later, an infrared-sensing helicopter hovered around the area full of prickly cholla cactus, looking for undocumented immigrants, many of whom were later captured, he said.

The action surprised Petersen but simultaneously confirmed his fears about illegal immigration.

"Our borders are really porous, and it is actually happening," Petersen said. "The stuff that you are hearing is not being made up."

Illegal immigration has become the most polarizing topic in Arizona. An estimated 500,000 undocumented immigrants live in the state; Gov. Janet Napolitano has declared a state of emergency along the border, and several Arizona ccongressmen have proposed varying forms of immigration reform legislation.

In Petersen's mind, the only way to solve illegal immigration is to shut down the border completely.

"You have to stop the flow," he said.

Before going to the border that October night, Petersen was given a tour of U.S. Border Patrol and Minuteman Civil Defense Corps headquarters. That's when he saw trails stamped in the desert grass, literal road maps detailing where undocumented immigrants traveled.

Petersen then underwent training, where he was instructed not to approach anyone ("You're just eyes and ears. No harassment, no nothing") and to radio into Minuteman headquarters whenever a suspected undocumented immigrant was spotted.

Now a "card-carrying" Minuteman volunteer, Petersen said he is enthusiastic about a return in February or April.

"To get a real firsthand look at it, everyone ought to at least do it once," he said. "Give up a night of TV or movies and go down there and watch the stars."