Thread: Minutemen: Stem 'tidal wave' of illegals T

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Minutemen: Stem 'tidal wave' of illegals T
September 3, 2006 12:50 am


Minuteman William Heathorn holds a ceremonial lamp symbolizing Paul Revere's ride at the beginning of the American Revolution.
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Minutemen assemble at King's Anvil Ranch, which sits astride the Altar Valley--a major crossing point for illegal immigrants.
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Tom 'Guard Dog' Collinson, wearing his 'Undocumented Border Patrol Agent' shirt, gives a briefing to new members of the Minutemen.
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Members of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps gather for their weekend 'Hotter Than Hell' muster. Garfield Thomas Jr. (left) and Jim Holman stand guard on a road at King's Anvil Ranch in Three Points, Ariz., on a Saturday in August. The men set up lawn chairs and manned a spot beside the border fence to watch for illegal immigrants.
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By MIKE MORONES
By MIKE MORONES
HREE POINTS, Ariz.--Brian Davis sorted through the gear in the back of his Jeep.

It was all there: extra water, snacks, camouflage for his vehicle, clothes, binoculars, GPS, a compass, a few science magazines, a folding chair, flashlights, extra batteries, a camera and an extra handgun with spare ammo.

He wears a .45-caliber pistol on his hip.

On a Saturday in August, Davis, a member of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, was at King's Anvil Ranch, about 40 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border.

His friend Tom "Guard Dog" Collinson likes to joke that most people think the Minutemen are a bunch of rednecks sitting in the back of pickup trucks drinking beer.

"Well, I always say you don't have to be a rocket scientist to be a Minuteman," Collinson said. "But you could be."

Pointing to Davis, Collinson exclaims, "He's a rocket scientist!"

During the week, Davis is a theoretical physicist at Raytheon Missile Systems in Tucson. On the weekends, he keeps an eye on Arizona's border with the Minutemen.

"I wanted to do something to make a difference," Davis said. "People sit and moan about the border, saying, 'Well, there's nothing I can do.' Well, there is something you can do. Politicians eventually have to listen. You can vote them out of office."

Davis has a pragmatic approach to border security.

He wants immigrants to register and the government to do background checks.

"I don't care if they come over here to work, as long as you know who you've got," he said.

And once they're here, he said, immigrants need to obey the law.

"The thing is, it's one thing to come over here and work," Davis said. "But we also get the dealers, and we get the pedophiles and things like that. And there's no reciprocity between the United States and Mexico. They commit a crime, they run back over there and Mexico says, 'Well, you know, we can't find 'em.'"

The Minutemen began in 2005, first as the Minuteman Project, co-founded by Chris Simcox, a former schoolteacher and newspaper editor, and Jim Gilchrist. The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, now headed by Simcox, is a spin off of the original group.

Initially decried as "vigilantes" by President Bush, the MCDC boasts chapters in many states, including Virginia.

On the MCDC's Web site, Simcox invites potential volunteers to "become force-multipliers to assist [the Border Patrol's] monumental task of turning back the tidal wave of people entering our country illegally."

In addition to periodic "musters"--ranging from weekends to 30-day operations--the group operates two political-action committees and is involved in funding construction of a wall along part of the Mexican border.

During a training session before the start of the Arizona chapter's August "Hotter than Hell Muster," Collinson laid out the ground rules for new volunteers: "Minutemen observe, report, and direct Border Patrol to suspected illegal aliens or illegal activity."

He stressed that the volunteers are not to verbally or physically engage suspected border-crossers, explaining that the Minutemen are closely scrutinized.

"These are procedures that are gonna keep us out of trouble, and keep the organization out of trouble," he said. "And keep you safe."


As thunderheads from the annual rains rolled over the 57,000-acre ranch, the Minutemen gathered under a tent to get a briefing from MCDC Arizona State Director Stacey O'Connell and Simcox.

They started by lighting a symbolic lamp--commemorating Paul Revere's midnight ride at the start of the American Revolution. Men and women dressed in the latest military camouflage gathered with people in jeans and T-shirts.

Many had pistols, some kept in modern holsters strapped to the wearer's upper thigh. Others adopted a decidedly Western approach, wearing tooled and oiled leather pistol belts with cowboy-style cartridge loops. The group allows sidearms for personal protection but prohibits long guns such as rifles or shotguns.

King's Anvil Ranch is located in the Altar Valley, one of Arizona's busiest routes for illegal immigrants and smugglers. The Minutemen are permitted by the ranch owner to patrol his land.

Temperatures regularly rise to triple digits, and the territory is crisscrossed by washes, or dry streambeds, that can flash flood during the rainy season.

During his training session, Collinson let new recruits know that everything in the desert will bite, sting, poke or poison them, and he stressed caution.

"These are the badlands, man," Collinson said. "They call it the 'frontier.' That's the Mexican term. And they don't recognize the border. They call it 'the other side.'"

A Minuteman called "Pineapple," a Vietnam veteran dressed in camouflage with an MCDC patch, called out the posts and the volunteers assigned to them as the sun began to set over the sharp mountains to the west. Radios were handed out while the Minutemen gathered their gear, guns and lawn chairs, then lined up their vehicles for the convoy into the ranchlands.

Garfield Thomas Jr. and Jim Holman parked their car off the side of a dirt road and set up their lawn chairs next to a gate in a barbed-wire fence. Silhouetted against a backdrop fit for a John Wayne western, the two friends from Saddlebrook, a retirement community near Tucson, pressed binoculars to their eyes to watch the scrubland in the fading light, their revolvers on their hips. Thomas had done this before and brought Holman along for his first patrol with the MCDC.

"I don't think we can stop border problems, but we can bring publicity to get Congress to do something," Thomas said.

Muster organizer O'Connell agreed with Thomas' sentiment.

"What we are doing is an act of protest to our federal and state governments, showing them that the average American citizen can do what they should be doing and demanding more support for the [Border Patrol] and Homeland Security," he said. "By doing this, we have forced our governments to look more directly at the immigration problems, forced them to take some sort of action."

O'Connell said 85 volunteers attended the weekend muster. They spotted 27 illegal immigrants and called them in to the Border Patrol. But O'Connell said he thought only two were apprehended, because of slow response from the Border Patrol.

Collinson said illegal immigrants are spotted on ranch land--almost 40 miles inside the border--on a daily basis. Border-crossers who make it that far have been walking for days.

"Often the ones we find, they're wiped out," Collinson said. "They're tired, exhausted. They're dehydrated. They're ready to give up."



To reach MIKE MORONES: 540/374-5000, ext. 5438
Email: mmorones@freelancestar.com


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Copyright 2006 The Free Lance-Star Publishing Company.

Thank God for these men and others like them,God Bless them!