Sentinel staff writer scouts Arizona border with Florida Minutemen (with video)

Jim Stratton jstratton@orlandosentinel.com

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/orl-minu ... ory?page=1

THREE POINTS, Ariz. - I am standing in the Arizona desert, 35 miles north of the Mexican border, searching for illegal immigrants with two men I barely know. Both are carrying handguns.

It's dark and cold, and a stiff breeze claws at my back.

I'm freezing, but I can't move around to warm up. The guys I'm with -- Minutemen from Florida -- worry I'd make too much noise, revealing our position to anyone lurking in the desert.So I slouch behind a cholla cactus, rocking quietly back and forth.

Fifteen feet away, the Minutemen probe the night for migrants trying to slip into the country.

Besides the guns, they're armed with a spotlight, an electronic listening device and a $13,000 thermal-vision camera that detects body heat as far as 1,000 feet away. Nearby, their rental car -- a champagne-colored Lincoln Town Car -- is parked in the sand like a shiny beached whale.

We're patrolling the desert in a car worth more than three times what most Mexicans make in a year. We've got technology used by SWAT teams and the military. We are surrounded by coyotes, scorpions and, presumably, people desperate to get into the country.

The scene is as surreal as the night sky is beautiful.

I close my notebook and notice a noise in the distance -- a crunch, crunch, crunch that seems to be getting closer. Seconds later, I realize what it is: There are people out there -- and they're headed our way.


'It's the right thing to do'

I've come west to see how members of the Minutemen Civil Defense Corps protect the borders. I'm with three Floridians who came here for "Operation Secure America," a monthlong effort by the controversial border-security group.

They come to the King's Anvil Ranch about an hour southwest of Tucson and head into the desert for eight-hour shifts along heavily traveled smuggling and migrant trails in the Altar Valley. If they see anyone, they contact the U.S. Border Patrol.

Volunteers endure withering heat, nighttime chills and long stretches of boredom for the chance to turn back a few migrants.

So why bother?

James Johnston, a 39-year-old father of two from Brevard County, is quick with an answer. He worries an unchecked flow of illegal immigrants will drive down wages, creating a massive underclass. Or that terrorists could slip into the country and launch an attack.

In either case, he says, his children will pay the price.

"They're the two reasons I'm doing this," he says. "For their futures."

Truman Fields, a retired IBM executive and former Marine from southwest Florida, says he's protecting his country.

"It's the right thing to do," he says. "I didn't serve six years in the military to see the country handed over to another nation."

Fields, 66, captures the Minuteman mind-set as well as anyone. Members are convinced the country is under attack, that most people are oblivious and that they must do something to make a statementSo they go to the border and look for Mexicans.

Bill Landes suggested I go with them, hoping to dispel the notion that members are immigrant-bashing vigilantes. The 52-year-old Landes is from Haines City and is the director of Minutemen chapters in North and Central Florida. I meet up with him at the Arizona ranch, where volunteers gather around a couple of tents, a communications trailer and 21 American flags.

I find ex-military types covered in enough camouflage to carpet the desert. I see weekend warriors in jeans and hiking boots. One man reports for duty in a 2007 Cadillac Escalade. He wears a polo shirt and black SWAT pants that still bear the manufacturer's original creases. There is also a "Granny Brigade," a group of middle-aged women in pink camouflage T-shirts.Like almost everyone else, they are armed. "We don't expect trouble," Landes says, "but you never know."

Besides staking out the border, the volunteers tour "lay-up" areas -- spots in the desert where illegal immigrants dump the things they won't need just before they're picked up. I go with them on one tour, traveling about an hour into the desert. As we come up on a small washout, I see hundreds of tattered backpacks, water bottles and cheap shoes scattered on the sand. There are toothbrushes, empty cans of foot powder and empty rolls of toilet paper. It looks like a landfill.

Nearby, a pair of women's underwear hangs in a mesquite tree. The smugglers, called coyotes, sometimes demand sex as payment for sneaking women into the U.S. The underwear is their trophy.

"Some horrible things happen out here," Landes says.


'Scorpion Seven'

Before working "on the line," all Minutemen receive about an hour of training. Because I'm going with them, group leaders insist I get the same treatment.

The session is led by a Minuteman veteran, who hands us a 19-page manual and a desert-safety pamphlet. Among other things, it tells us how to purify water and avoid Gila monsters.

His message is straightforward: We're to look for people trying to slip over the border, shine a spotlight on them and call the Border Patrol. We're not to touch or talk to them. If they're dehydrated or exhausted, we can offer water, though someone in my group suggests that would be "aiding and abetting" a criminal.

I'm pretty sure he's serious.

We're told we can patrol armed or unarmed -- unarmed, thanks -- and asked whether we have our own night-vision goggles. The instructor thanks us for joining -- I haven't -- and tells us to have fun. Before heading out, a line leader urges us to "kick some butt."

Two hours later, I am in the desert with Johnston and Landes. We have snacks, equipment and the sort of radio handle Minutemen love: "Scorpion Seven."

We're parked off a dusty ranch road facing the jagged silhouette of Baboquivari Peak. Forty miles to the east, the lights of Tucson turn the sky a pale orange. All around us, the desert unfolds into the night.

Our first hour is quiet; the thermal-vision camera spots just a few rabbits and the odd coyote moving through the tangle of prickly pear and jumping cholla cacti. None of the other seven teams reports anything either.

Then I hear the footsteps.

They're coming toward us, growing louder with each step. Landes and Johnston hear them, too. They're peering into the darkness, spotlight at the ready. When the hikers emerge from the brush, Landes flips the switch.

Thirty feet in front of me, paralyzed by the blast of light, is a small group of people. From behind my cactus, I see snatches of clothes, hair and faces. I guess there are five, maybe seven, Mexicans.

I see only one set of eyes clearly, and they look terrified.

A second later, and it's over. The hikers scatter into the desert, hiding under plants and outrunning the light. Landes and Johnston report the sighting, and Minuteman headquarters calls Border Patrol.

Within an hour, two agents arrive and plunge into the brush. Their flashlights dance in the darkness as they poke under bushes and search for footprints. They look hard, but the Mexicans have vanished.

Landes shares the news with his line leader and settles in for the rest of the shift. He's convinced the Mexicans are still out there, "waiting for a chance to slip around us," he whispers. "Gonna try to cross the road."

He says it with the same certainty I've heard from everyone here. Johnston was just as sure when he told me two fuzzy, motionless images in the thermal camera were people. They turned out to be cacti.

All the Minutemen seem to share that trait. Despite the intractable complexities of illegal immigration, the messy mix of politics, economics and culture, Minutemen are not plagued by doubts or swayed by shades of gray. To them, right and wrong are easy to see -- even in the darkness of the Arizona desert.

"The bottom line is they're violating our laws," Fields says. "They shouldn't be here."