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Minuteman Project: A Neighborhood Watch along the border
By: JAMES L. CHASE
April 2, 2005

Minuteman Project is a Neighborhood Watch in April along the United States/Mexico border. It operates like a Neighborhood Watch, or citizens watch, in any residential area. Watches observe activity in an area. They do not confront, arrest or detain anyone. They only observe and tell law enforcement about activity in the area, and the law decides what to do with that information.

Who is in the Minuteman Project Neighborhood Watch? Concerned citizens from every U.S. state are in the group. They represent whites, Hispanics, American Indians, blacks, Asians and others. Their backgrounds cover an amazing variety. We have doctors, nurses, active and retired military, ex-Border Patrol agents, academics, environmentalists, CPAs, ranchers, farmers, active and retired law enforcement personnel, retired federal agents and schoolteachers. The group's makeup is America's makeup. They are concerned because citizens of many other nations are illegally crossing our borders.

How will the Minuteman Neighborhood Watch operate? Each watch group will contain four Minutemen. They observe the border. If people are entering the United States illegally, then we call the Border Patrol to inform them.

The United States and Mexico have a very long common border. The United States and Mexico have set up ports of entry, legal entry checkpoint locations. It is illegal for U.S. citizens, Mexican citizens or any other nation's citizens to cross that common border at any place that is not a legal entry checkpoint location.

Even ranchers whose land is on the border cannot just wander back and forth across it. That is illegal.

What is the uproar about the Minuteman Project Neighborhood Watch? We all saw how Dan Rather lost his job by reporting a lie. Some people, large businesses, real racist groups, and others who just misunderstand have tried to confuse the public by calling the Neighborhood Watch group racists, vigilantes or Mexican hunters.

Like the Dan Rather report, that is totally false. We are only a group who wants the law obeyed.

About being racist: It's impossible to be racist when our makeup includes almost every race and ethnic group except people from the planet Mars. I am Jim Chase, a 58-year-old grandfather and my family has been in San Diego County since 1866. My cousins are Hispanic. I have Mexican relatives in Mexico. My wife is Cherokee and her great-great-grandfather was chief of the Cherokee Nation during the Trail of Tears. James Gilchrist, a leader of Minuteman Project, has Hispanic relatives including his son-in-law. They have family gatherings and cookouts and are friends. Chris Simcox is a Minuteman leader and his first wife is black, which makes their child half-white, half-black. If they had shown any racist attitude, I would never have been part of the Minuteman Project Neighborhood Watch. The racist accusation is a lot like someone you know saying you lied or said something bad about them when you know it is not true.

Some people do enjoy making up lies, don't they? How many times have you had your actions or words lied about?

Then, what is the purpose of the Minuteman Project Neighborhood Watch? The purpose is to have only legal border crossings to and from the United States and Mexico. The United States has always called itself "a nation of laws."

We agree with that and want to keep it that way. And we all remember 9-11 and what happened when a group that was illegally in the United States caused the horrible death and damage on that day. We want to have the law obeyed to prevent 9-11 from happening again. To prevent it, we must have safe and secure borders, just like the 9-11 Commission said in its report to Congress.

In 2005, conservative estimates from government watch agencies indicate that we now have between 20 million and 29 million illegal immigrants in the United States, plus an additional 3 million each year. Thousands cross daily.

Who are they? What are they doing? How many are members of al-Qaida? How many are criminals, have weapons that spread a killer disease, want to bomb schools, hospitals or government buildings? Nobody knows the answers because our borders are wide open. The Border Patrol is a fine group that is understaffed, underfunded and stretched too far. The 9-11 Commission said to hire more agents and fund them. Congress agreed to hire more but they are not yet funded. The Border Patrol is extremely overburdened.

The Minuteman Project Neighborhood Watch offers free citizen watchers to help them watch the long common border.

Why did I join? An American patriot said, "If I do not do it, who will? If it is not done now, then when?" It's like taking care of your car. If you do not take care of it, no one else will. If you wait too long, then the car will break down and it is too late. This is the United States and I love my country. I served as border patrol on the DMZ in Vietnam out of a Camp Pendleton, infantry unit, 2nd Battalion 9th Marines. James Gilchrist and I served in the same unit, both in Forward Observer teams, and that makes us naturals for this border watch.

I am a legal citizen of the United States and have a right and an obligation to help protect our nation, our laws and way of life, just like I did in Vietnam.

I want our laws obeyed. I want all our citizens protected. I pay taxes, obey the law, and want all citizens to do the same. I do not want citizens from nations that do not provide medical, schooling, Social Security or welfare benefits coming into the United States to fraudulently get the benefits that you and I pay for when we pay our taxes. It's as if you deposit money in the bank and other people take it out and spend it. Then the money is gone when you need it. I want legal citizens and a legal society.

Don't you want that, too?

James L. Chase lives in Oceanside. He is the founder of the United States Border Patrol Auxiliary (www.UnitedStatesBorderPatrolAux.com), which is forming a similar "Neighborhood Watch" program along California's border with Mexico.