Thread: Border group fears infiltration by supremacists

Border group fears infiltration by supremacists
Volunteer patrols, FBI wary as stakeout nears
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/ ... sts05.html

Susan Carroll
Republic Tucson Bureau
Mar. 5, 2005 12:00 AM

TOMBSTONE - The FBI and leaders of a civilian patrol set to descend on southern Arizona next month to prevent undocumented immigrants from crossing the U.S.-Mexican border say they are concerned about White supremacists and other extremists joining the effort.

The Internet-driven recruiting effort for the Minuteman Project has attracted more than 700 volunteers and last week alone generated more than 1 million hits on the project's Web site, organizers said.

But the patrol also has drawn major interest on White supremacist Web sites and in their chat rooms. An Aryan Nation site links directly to the Minuteman Project home page with the words: "A call for action on part of ALL ARYAN SOLDIERS." advertisement




FBI spokeswoman Susan Herskovitz said the civilian patrol's plan to converge on this city of 1,500 on April 1 for a monthlong stakeout on the border is "definitely a concern." She declined to elaborate.

Jim Gilchrist, who launched the project, sometimes thinks of his brainchild and asks, "Oh, man, what have I created?" Still, Gilchrist, 56, a retired California accountant, said that he is confident the group's efforts will be a "peaceful protest" by "patriots" who reject violence and that members will successfully weed out any extremists.

Besides catching the attention of law enforcement, the group's plans have angered the Mexican government, which is considering suing in the United States to try to stop the patrol.

Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Ernesto Derbez said earlier this week that he also plans to complain to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice when she visits Mexico City on Thursday.

A Mexico City newspaper this past Wednesday ran a front-page headline about hundreds of Americans "hunting" immigrants.


'Peaceful protest'


The Minuteman Project is an outgrowth of an effort started in 2002 by Chris Simcox, a retired kindergarten teacher and California transplant.

He founded an organization called Civil Homeland Defense, which patrols the desert, finds undocumented immigrants and relays their locations to U.S. Border Patrol agents. Simcox describes the efforts as a kind of expanded "neighborhood watch."

Gilchrist heard about Simcox's work on the news, came to Arizona to meet him and launched the nationwide recruiting drive for the Minuteman Project in October. Although Simcox's efforts had attracted media attention before, it was not nearly on this scale. Since November, major news media, from CNN to the Los Angeles Times to the Associated Press, have broadcast or printed reports on the effort.

The group's members plan to hold demonstrations and conduct round-the-clock patrols for a month in the San Pedro Valley, a popular smuggling corridor. Organizers do not expect all the volunteers at once and say some may stay for days, while others plan to remain the whole month. The volunteers are paying their own way to the border, organizers said. They would not disclose details about where patrol members will stay.

The effort has met with opposition from Cochise County Supervisor Paul Newman, who called members "gun-toting vigilantes," but other area politicians, such as Bill Barlow, a Tombstone city councilman, have expressed support for the patrol and say they welcome the tourism money the group is expected to generate.

"We don't expect any trouble," Barlow said. "I see no problem with them at all."

Paul K. Charlton, U.S. attorney for the District of Arizona, said the widespread media coverage is to blame for attracting so much interest in the Minuteman effort. The Border Patrol and other federal officials have asked civilians not to interfere with undocumented immigrants or law enforcement, saying they endanger themselves and others.

"When people act as vigilantes, they put themselves at risk, they put other law-abiding citizens at risk, and they put law enforcement at risk," he said. "It's not a nuanced issue here. We want citizens to assist law enforcement by calling in when they see a crime, by giving us information if they see suspicious activity. But no one in law enforcement, for example, is asking anyone to carry weapons into a bank and sit on a stool and wait for a bank robbery.

"That's the distinction here. These people are putting themselves and others in harm's way."

Gilchrist insists that the volunteers are not "vigilantes" and said that the vast majority are simply frustrated by the federal government's lack of enforcement along the 1,950-mile Southwestern border, particularly Arizona, the busiest illegal crossing corridor in the nation.

But Gilchrist acknowledged that all the attention has attracted fringe groups, mainly three "violent" factions that are trying to co-opt the group's efforts: White supremacists, radical pro-Hispanic groups and "open-border fanatics."

"We just want to be middle of the road," Gilchrist said. "We're going to be supporting the enforcement of the law, not taking the law into our own hands."


Policing the project


Organizers of the Minuteman Project say they are working to weed out overt racists from membership rolls and say they have turned over three people to the FBI. The agency would not confirm that information.

Simcox said applicants are screened, noting that the group identified a person who was posting on a White-supremacist Web site and kicked him off the patrol.

All members will be issued ID badges, Simcox said, and anyone who is not pre-registered will not be allowed to participate. All will be required to provide a driver's license. Volunteers will patrol in small groups on foot and relay information to the Border Patrol. Organizers said patrol members can carry sidearms but not rifles and will be expected to abide by state and federal gun laws.

"I'm assuring the community that the organizers, using private investigators and other sources that we have thoroughly screened the volunteers that will be working with us," Simcox said. They will not provide a membership list to law enforcement, he said.

Simcox said he was upset by the association with the White Power Web sites but has no way to stop them from linking to the Minuteman site.

The Aryan Nation did not return messages seeking comment.

Its Web site includes a message that the group is "not interested in participating with any commercial media" in part because of "your anti-White stance."

"We're certainly embarrassed by it," Simcox said of the Aryan Nation's interest in his group's patrol.

Hedi Beirich, deputy director of the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center, is skeptical of Minuteman organizers' claims that they will be able to weed out White supremacists.

"Although the people running the Minuteman Project claim they're going to somehow screen applicants . . . and send information to the FBI, which I find hard to believe, chances are some of these pretty nasty people are going to end up down at the border," she said. "And it's dangerous; these are people who hate people of color."

Minuteman organizers, who maintain that their efforts are an expression of their First Amendment rights, take exception to being called racist.

"Some people have said I'm racist, and that's just not true," Gilchrist said. "My son-in-law is a full-on Mexican, and my grandson is half-Mexican. It's not a race thing. This is an enforcement-of-law issue. I've said this so many times I get tired talking about it."

Reach the reporter at 1-(520)-207-6007.

Border group fears infiltration by supremacists
Volunteer patrols, FBI wary as stakeout nears
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/ ... sts05.html

Susan Carroll
Republic Tucson Bureau
Mar. 5, 2005 12:00 AM

TOMBSTONE - The FBI and leaders of a civilian patrol set to descend on southern Arizona next month to prevent undocumented immigrants from crossing the U.S.-Mexican border say they are concerned about White supremacists and other extremists joining the effort.

The Internet-driven recruiting effort for the Minuteman Project has attracted more than 700 volunteers and last week alone generated more than 1 million hits on the project's Web site, organizers said.

But the patrol also has drawn major interest on White supremacist Web sites and in their chat rooms. An Aryan Nation site links directly to the Minuteman Project home page with the words: "A call for action on part of ALL ARYAN SOLDIERS." advertisement




FBI spokeswoman Susan Herskovitz said the civilian patrol's plan to converge on this city of 1,500 on April 1 for a monthlong stakeout on the border is "definitely a concern." She declined to elaborate.

Jim Gilchrist, who launched the project, sometimes thinks of his brainchild and asks, "Oh, man, what have I created?" Still, Gilchrist, 56, a retired California accountant, said that he is confident the group's efforts will be a "peaceful protest" by "patriots" who reject violence and that members will successfully weed out any extremists.

Besides catching the attention of law enforcement, the group's plans have angered the Mexican government, which is considering suing in the United States to try to stop the patrol.

Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Ernesto Derbez said earlier this week that he also plans to complain to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice when she visits Mexico City on Thursday.

A Mexico City newspaper this past Wednesday ran a front-page headline about hundreds of Americans "hunting" immigrants.


'Peaceful protest'


The Minuteman Project is an outgrowth of an effort started in 2002 by Chris Simcox, a retired kindergarten teacher and California transplant.

He founded an organization called Civil Homeland Defense, which patrols the desert, finds undocumented immigrants and relays their locations to U.S. Border Patrol agents. Simcox describes the efforts as a kind of expanded "neighborhood watch."

Gilchrist heard about Simcox's work on the news, came to Arizona to meet him and launched the nationwide recruiting drive for the Minuteman Project in October. Although Simcox's efforts had attracted media attention before, it was not nearly on this scale. Since November, major news media, from CNN to the Los Angeles Times to the Associated Press, have broadcast or printed reports on the effort.

The group's members plan to hold demonstrations and conduct round-the-clock patrols for a month in the San Pedro Valley, a popular smuggling corridor. Organizers do not expect all the volunteers at once and say some may stay for days, while others plan to remain the whole month. The volunteers are paying their own way to the border, organizers said. They would not disclose details about where patrol members will stay.

The effort has met with opposition from Cochise County Supervisor Paul Newman, who called members "gun-toting vigilantes," but other area politicians, such as Bill Barlow, a Tombstone city councilman, have expressed support for the patrol and say they welcome the tourism money the group is expected to generate.

"We don't expect any trouble," Barlow said. "I see no problem with them at all."

Paul K. Charlton, U.S. attorney for the District of Arizona, said the widespread media coverage is to blame for attracting so much interest in the Minuteman effort. The Border Patrol and other federal officials have asked civilians not to interfere with undocumented immigrants or law enforcement, saying they endanger themselves and others.

"When people act as vigilantes, they put themselves at risk, they put other law-abiding citizens at risk, and they put law enforcement at risk," he said. "It's not a nuanced issue here. We want citizens to assist law enforcement by calling in when they see a crime, by giving us information if they see suspicious activity. But no one in law enforcement, for example, is asking anyone to carry weapons into a bank and sit on a stool and wait for a bank robbery.

"That's the distinction here. These people are putting themselves and others in harm's way."

Gilchrist insists that the volunteers are not "vigilantes" and said that the vast majority are simply frustrated by the federal government's lack of enforcement along the 1,950-mile Southwestern border, particularly Arizona, the busiest illegal crossing corridor in the nation.

But Gilchrist acknowledged that all the attention has attracted fringe groups, mainly three "violent" factions that are trying to co-opt the group's efforts: White supremacists, radical pro-Hispanic groups and "open-border fanatics."

"We just want to be middle of the road," Gilchrist said. "We're going to be supporting the enforcement of the law, not taking the law into our own hands."


Policing the project


Organizers of the Minuteman Project say they are working to weed out overt racists from membership rolls and say they have turned over three people to the FBI. The agency would not confirm that information.

Simcox said applicants are screened, noting that the group identified a person who was posting on a White-supremacist Web site and kicked him off the patrol.

All members will be issued ID badges, Simcox said, and anyone who is not pre-registered will not be allowed to participate. All will be required to provide a driver's license. Volunteers will patrol in small groups on foot and relay information to the Border Patrol. Organizers said patrol members can carry sidearms but not rifles and will be expected to abide by state and federal gun laws.

"I'm assuring the community that the organizers, using private investigators and other sources that we have thoroughly screened the volunteers that will be working with us," Simcox said. They will not provide a membership list to law enforcement, he said.

Simcox said he was upset by the association with the White Power Web sites but has no way to stop them from linking to the Minuteman site.

The Aryan Nation did not return messages seeking comment.

Its Web site includes a message that the group is "not interested in participating with any commercial media" in part because of "your anti-White stance."

"We're certainly embarrassed by it," Simcox said of the Aryan Nation's interest in his group's patrol.

Hedi Beirich, deputy director of the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center, is skeptical of Minuteman organizers' claims that they will be able to weed out White supremacists.

"Although the people running the Minuteman Project claim they're going to somehow screen applicants . . . and send information to the FBI, which I find hard to believe, chances are some of these pretty nasty people are going to end up down at the border," she said. "And it's dangerous; these are people who hate people of color."

Minuteman organizers, who maintain that their efforts are an expression of their First Amendment rights, take exception to being called racist.

"Some people have said I'm racist, and that's just not true," Gilchrist said. "My son-in-law is a full-on Mexican, and my grandson is half-Mexican. It's not a race thing. This is an enforcement-of-law issue. I've said this so many times I get tired talking about it."

Reach the reporter at 1-(520)-207-6007.

To All concerned:

The Minutemen will be doing a 30 day Neighborhood Watch Program in Cochise County, Arizona, fighting crime the same way you do in your neighborhood.

Observe the criminals, take notes and pictures , CALL THE LAWMEN TO DO THE ARRESTS.

To All concerned:

The Minutemen will be doing a 30 day Neighborhood Watch Program in Cochise County, Arizona, fighting crime the same way you do in your neighborhood.

Observe the criminals, take notes and pictures , CALL THE LAWMEN TO DO THE ARRESTS.

I can see where this would be a legitimate concern. There are too many loose cannons out there already.

I can see where this would be a legitimate concern. There are too many loose cannons out there already.