http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepubli ... n0402.html

200 join desert rally to patrol border

Susan Carroll
Republic Tucson Bureau
Apr. 2, 2006 12:00 AM

SOUTH OF THREE POINTS - Volunteers with the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps returned to the U.S.-Mexican border on Saturday, holding a rally outside a remote, adobe ranch house before spreading out in the Altar Valley southwest of Tucson to watch for undocumented immigrants.

About 200 supporters turned up for the noontime rally, where speakers called for tighter border controls and political candidates stumped for donations and votes.

The organization's leader, Chris Simcox, said the group's message was clear: "We don't need immigration reform. We need our borders secure and our laws enforced."

The kickoff Saturday marked the one-year anniversary of the launch of the then-named "Minuteman Project," a volunteer effort organized by Simcox and Jim Gilchrist, a retired California accountant.

The group received national media attention and claimed to have thousands of volunteers, although because the patrols were spread out and the shifts staggered, there was no way to reach an accurate, independent count.

On Saturday after the rally, a line of 20 cars and trucks left the rally to head out to the desert in the remote Altar Valley, where the volunteers set up "observation posts," parking their cars a few hundred yards apart and sitting in lawn chairs.

They plan to conduct around-the-clock patrols until the end of April.

Along the side of Arizona 286, near where the Minuteman volunteers had set up camp, about 20 American Civil Liberties Union legal observers tried to gain access to the patrol areas and were trying to determine if it was private or public property.

Michelle Dallacroce, a new Minuteman volunteer from Phoenix, shielded her eyes from the sun with a black cowboy hat, sitting outside a silver Lexus sports utility vehicle late Saturday afternoon.

"I'm out here because our borders are insecure," said Dallacroce, who lives near a day-labor center in Phoenix.

"I have neighbors being broken into, cars being vandalized and robbed. My children have never ridden their bikes around the block alone, ever, since we've lived here."