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Ex-Minuteman leader sees danger in Texas patrol
State leader rebuts charges, says group will monitor border peacefully.
By Mark Lisheron

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Sunday, September 18, 2005

The former president of Texas' first chapter of the Minuteman border patrol group is warning that violence could result from the group's first Texas mission to identify people coming across the border illegally.

Kenneth Buelter dissolved the Goliad chapter of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps last week, he said, because he did not want to be responsible or liable for the safety of the volunteers on patrol. The danger could come from new members in other chapters in the state who he said were not following the nonviolent policies outlined by the group's founders.

"Let me put it to you this way," Buelter said Friday, "I dissolved the Minuteman organization because it was not following its own written procedures. If they do not follow these policies, I foresee the potential for problems."

Al Garza, state president of the Minuteman group, said critics are unjustly accusing members of racism and gun violence to shift attention from the problem of uncontrolled illegal immigration. Minuteman members have in the past several months been patrolling the borders in Arizona and New Mexico without serious incident.

"They say we're a bunch of vigilantes, Nazis, white supremacists, what have you. They can say whatever the hell they want. The focal point for us is illegal immigration. We wouldn't exist if the government was doing its job on the border," Garza said.

Even before its first patrol, the date and location of which has been shrouded in secrecy by the leadership, the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps' plans to come to Texas have prompted protests throughout the state. They included a rally Saturday in Austin, where about 200 people protesting at the Capitol got in a shouting match with about 100 Minuteman supporters; a prayer vigil in which 1,800 white protest ribbons were distributed last week in Brownsville; and a resolution opposing citizen border patrols passed last week by the Commissioners Court in Cameron County, which includes Brownsville.

Officials for the U.S. Border Patrol, now part of the Department of Homeland Security, have issued statements discouraging armed volunteers from patrolling the border. Goliad County Sheriff Robert De La Garza is among several South Texas law officers who said they will take a hard line with volunteers who break the law.

"My community doesn't tolerate racism or racist violence in any form," De La Garza said. "I told them that if they step one inch out of line I'm going to hammer their (butts)."

Ray Ybarra, has been monitoring Minuteman activity for months in Texas for the American Civil Liberties Union. He said that, in spite of promises of peaceful observation and cooperation with federal border authorities, the underlying theme of the Minuteman movement is racial intolerance and the threat of armed imposition.

"The word needs to be gotten out that these individuals are the future terrorists of America, and if they are not successful in their mission, these people will start blowing things up," Ybarra said.

The ACLU is unsure where the first patrol will be but began in late August training its own volunteers to monitor Minuteman members when their location is discovered, Ybarra said. Volunteers want to make sure that the Minuteman members break no laws, he said.

Buelter, the former leader of the Goliad chapter, said the members have no intention of giving away their plans so that they can be observed by groups antagonistic to their goals. Based on the activities of some of the members he objected to, which he declined to specify, Buelter said he expected the Minuteman members to patrol somewhere in the Nueces Strip.

The Strip is territory covering hundreds of square miles and more than a dozen counties between the Nueces and Rio Grande rivers.

The Nueces Strip has historical significance to some Minuteman members, Buelter said, because it was the territory in which numerous gun battles took place between American ranchers and Mexican intruders after the Civil War. Historians have said those sometimes bloody battles included audacious lawbreaking on both sides. Some Minuteman members, Buelter said, interpret the history as a historic stand by Americans against Mexican incursion.

"There are some people, I think, who are trying to re-create Texas history," he said.

Garza, who makes a point of disclosing his Mexican-American heritage, said his group intends to conduct a peaceful and organized monitoring and reporting of illegal crossings. Ranchers in the target area have given enthusiastic permission for Minuteman members to patrol 30,000 acres of their property, Garza said.

Garza has been living in Arizona for the past several months while planning for the first Texas mission with Chris Simcox, one of the founders of the group.

Minuteman Civil Defense Corps representatives have been recruiting in places such as Goliad, El Paso, Houston and Dallas since April, when Simcox and Jim Gilchrist, the founders of the group, issued a nationwide call to the border from the headquarters in Tombstone, Ariz. Simcox, a former private school teacher, left his wife and family in California in 2001 and bought a Tombstone newspaper, which he used to call for a private, volunteer border patrol.

A short time later he founded Civilian Homeland Defense, the precursor to the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps.

Simcox claims Minuteman chapters in several states but has not disclosed how many members the group has in Texas or nationwide. When Simcox and Gilchrist rallied in Arizona in April, about 150 people showed up to volunteer or show support.

Simcox could not be reached despite several requests for an interview. A spokeswoman for Simcox, Connie Hair, said the group is withholding information because it is "not interested in a three-ring circus, but a serious effort to assist Border Patrol with additional eyes and ears."

Buelter said that in some ways he regretted dissolving the Goliad Minuteman chapter.

Buelter lives near Goliad, 75 miles southeast of San Antonio, off a small back road that he said is part of a funnel for the half-dozen major highways leading north from the border between Laredo and Brownsville. Law enforcement in Goliad County and a Border Patrol task force stationed in Goliad have been overwhelmed by the traffic of illegal immigrants, he said.

"I'm not here today to disillusion anyone about the mission because the mission must be carried out for this country to survive," Buelter said. "I only hope and pray the folks from Arizona do what they did the last time and send home people not following procedures. Because if they don't, there is going to be problems."