Thread: Gilchrist Says Patriots are Worse Than "Open Border Fan

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/immi ... le-illegal

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Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Minutemen leader laments path of anti-illegal immigration groups
Founder of Minuteman Project said he worries about people instigating violence in connection with his group's name.
By AMY TAXIN
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Comments 36 | Recommend 2
When Jim Gilchrist headed to the U.S.-Mexico border three years ago to press for tougher immigration enforcement, he carried binoculars.
Today, Gilchrist is worried that a few self-proclaimed patriots might be carrying a gun.
After seeing online videos that encouraged border violence amid calls to crack down on illegal immigration, the 59-year-old Aliso Viejo resident said he feels responsible for what started out as a publicity campaign and has since fallen prey to internal divisions and to influence by people he believed had "Saddam Hussein mentalities."
"In retrospect, had I seen this, had I had a crystal ball to see what is going to happen… Am I happy? No," Gilchrist said in a phone conversation late last week. "Am I happy at the outcome of this whole movement? I am very, very sad, very disappointed."
A retired accountant, Gilchrist rose to the national scene when he led civilians on a border-watching mission in 2005. He appeared on countless TV interviews and news programs and took the issue of illegal immigration one step further when, several months later, he ran and lost a race against Rep. John Campbell, R-Irvine, to represent California's 48th Congressional district.
Last year, Gilchrist had a falling out with several of his former Minuteman Project collaborators, who accuse him of mismanaging the organization's funds. The dispute landed the group in court and splintered the anti-illegal immigration movement, which had been gathering steam amid several attempts in Congress to pass an overhaul of the immigration system.
Looking back, Gilchrist said he wished he had done more to root out troublemakers in the organization – both those who opposed him politically and those who instigate violence.
"There's all kinds of organizations that have spawned from the Minuteman Project and I have to say, some of the people who have gotten into this movement have sinister intentions," he said.
"It's an 'invasion'," Gilchrist said of illegal immigration across the border between the United States and Mexico, "but it's not a war. It is a covert 'Trojan Horse invasion'."
THEN AND NOW
That's a marked difference from the Gilchrist who led supporters on a caravan across the country two years ago to President Bush's ranch in Crawford, TX, shouting at critics before leaving from Los Angeles: "Minutemen, stand your ground!… If it's a war he wants, then let it begin here."
The year before, just back from the border trip, he told a group of 150 supporters at an anti-illegal immigration group meeting: ``I'm damned proud to be a vigilante.''
Last year, a coalition of human rights and labor groups labeled Gilchrist a "voice of intolerance" in the debate over immigration reform. In 2005, the Montgomery, Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center reported that neo-Nazis had joined the border-watching event led by Gilchrist.
The Minuteman Project was successful at tapping into core concerns among moderate Republicans and galvanizing them on the issue of immigration reform, said Louis DeSipio, a UC Irvine political science professor. But over the last year, immigration reform has slipped from the top of the national agenda, displaced by economic woes such as gas prices and the housing slump.
"At its peak, the group had a range of people," DeSipio said. "The sort of core of the movement was always people who took the metaphor of an invasion seriously and it's those (people) who have the potential to violence and are willing to use the web at least as a way of seeing if they can stir something up."
"As public opinion has moved away from immigration as being a highly salient issue and other things have come to the fore, the suburban patriot has moved in other directions," he said.
ADOPT-A-HIGHWAY
Now, Gilchrist continues to run his group with a web site that carries his name. He has adopted a two-mile stretch of Route 133 under California's Adopt-A-Highway program, planning to pick up litter and keep the roadway clean in exchange for the right to a promotional sign.
His former collaborators, including Barbara Coe of the California Coalition of Immigration Reform, continue to lobby for immigration enforcement on their own. Coe said she hasn't seen Gilchrist at rallies or on the border for some time.
Coe, an anti-illegal immigration activist since 1991, said she hasn't come across any instigators in her group. "Because that is rule number 1," she said. "You do not use inflammatory language and you never, never get violent – obviously, unless it is in the case of self-defense."
Gilchrist readily admits the movement has splintered over the last year. He said he still has ties to about 20 Minuteman Project chapters around the country – but used to have more.
Sometimes, Gilchrist said he thinks about leaving the debate over illegal immigration and taking on a new issue like urban blight or tax reform. For now, he said he will continue to lobby for more border patrol agents but not from a perch on the border, watching for people trying to cross.
"I have found, after four years in this movement (…) I very well may have been fighting for people with less character and less integrity than the 'open border fanatics' I have been fighting against," he said. "And that is a phenomenal indictment of something I have created."
Contact the writer: 714-796-7722 or ataxin@ocregister.com
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--Jim Gilchrist/Minutemen timeline
January 2003: Arizona's Chris Simcox starts weekend citizen border watches with about 10 others, calling it the Civil Homeland Defense group.
April 2005: Inspired in part by Simcox, Aliso Viejo's Jim Gilchrist organizes a two-week border watch that involves 880 volunteers. The anti-illegal immigration effort is dubbed the Minuteman Project and gets national publicity.
May 2005: Gilchrist incorporates the Minuteman Project, with himself and his wife as directors.
December 2005: Gilchrist runs in a special election for Congress. He comes in third with 25.5 percent of the vote. Simcox works on the campaign but then splits with Gilchrist and launches his own Minuteman Civil Defense Corps.
Early 2006: Gilchrist invites five close associates to join a board of directors. He later tells reporters that the board was formed in an advisory capacity only.
October 2006: Gilchrist is forced to end a speech at Columbia University after students from the Chicano Caucus climbed on stage with banners denouncing the Minutemen Project. The event prompts outrage from New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and university officials.
December 2006: Three directors express concerns to Gilchrist over accounting. The Minuteman Project nets about $430,000 for the year in donations and has about 2,000 dues-paying members.
January 2007: The same three directors – Barbara Coe, Marvin Stewart and Deborah Ann Courtney – vote to fire Gilchrist and another director. The three seize control of the organization's primary bank account. Three days later, Gilchrist tells the mutinying directors that they don't have the authority to fire him and that they are fired.
February 2007: Gilchrist files a lawsuit seeking to regain unilateral control of the group, saying that he is the only director with decision-making authority. The same day, a lawyer for Coe, Stewart and Courtney sends letters to the Postal Service and the Internal Revenue Service saying fundraising violations may have taken place without his clients' knowledge.
April 2007: After a Superior Court judge rejects Gilchrist's request to be immediately returned control of the Minuteman Project, he drops his lawsuit against fellow activists and files papers establishing a new group -- the Jim Gilchrist Minuteman Project Inc.
November 2007: Students walk out of an immigration debate at Cal State Long Beach between Jim Gilchrist and Enrique Morones, founder of the San Diego-based Border Angels, in protest of Gilchrist's opening remarks.
-- Compiled by Register News Researcher Michael Doss---------------------------------------------------------------------
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As Jim would say, "As Gilchrist goes, so goes the nation". What an ego this guy has.

The truth is that from the sound of his desparate e-mails, Gilchrist has scorched himself with his own donors and can no longer raise funds.

This goes hand in hand with the fact that there are no, and I mean ZERO, other groups in our movement that will work with Jim Gilchrist anymore due to his bizarre, ego maniacal, and destructive words and actions.

Jim Gilchrist and his small band of remaining followers you can count on one hand are imploding.

The question remains... how much damage to the movement is Jim going to do on the way down?

A month ago he claimed the entire movement would implode in seven months without him.

Now he is calling patriotic Americans "Saddam Hussein"?

And look at that last quote. This guy is insane if he thinks he created this movement.

ALIPAC and Save Our State were both formed six months before Jim Gilchrist started the initial phases of Minuteman 1 organization.

We came before Jim Gilchrist!

I wish Jim would just sit down and shut up and retire from this instead of vindictively trying to ruin as much as he can on the way out the door.

W

I wish Jim would just sit down and shut up and retire from this instead of vindictively trying to ruin as much as he can on the way out the door

Jim who? I agree, no one is listening to him because he's nuts.


ALIPAC is the place to go for real news and real Patriots love of God, Family, Country.

Thanks to ALIPAC!

It would seem, from his own words, that his prior accussations of others, have not had the effect he had hoped, and now he is attempting new tactics.

It would seem he is trying to turn people away from all of the groups, such as us and many others, in order to stoke his own ego again and line his pockets once more.

Apparently no one listened when he made claims against many that they were child molestors, Jim must be getting desperate for sure.

Someone really put him in his place! this was just posted:

Gilchrest- Hummmm Interesting character! Ran for office, LOST! Tried to keep the MMP going, Lost!
Suing previous members of MMP! Loosing again! Support from other citizen watch groups (Zero)! Lost again! Creditability (Zero) lost again!

It now seems that his supports actually see what colors he has on his back! RED, GREEN & WHITE! (Loosing again)

Mr. Gilchrest just wants to be in the political news and run for some other office! He does not want to go down to the border any longer! Last time he was there they had to kick his sorry A** off the hill! He is a bigger trouble maker than anyone! In the last 3 years Gilchrest has been to the border how many times? 2-times, 2-times in 3 YEARS!

What kind of EXPERIENCE does this man have with border security? NONE!

I am sorry to say, but Jim, it is time for you to pack your bags and go home, go back to being a CPA, you did a great job to start out with, but the "Power Trip" went to your head!

You tried to make the movement ALL ABOUT JIM, it is NOT! sorry to tell you..... It is ABOUT ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION Jim, NOT Racist comments that you now make about your former MMP people who you were very proud of!

Sorry, Jim, time for you to sit back and "OBSERVE" from your lawn chair! (Again).

I wonder how much Gilchrist PAID AMY TAXIN of the Orange County Register to interview him?

I checked the link and saw that the OC Register is using that picture of Jim when he showed up at a speech looking like a complete nut wearing body armor outside of his suit. The unintended effect was it made him look crazy and reminded people of a straight jacket.



W

W, a mental patient is what comes to mind when I look at that picture!

BTW, I also should have mentioned that he forgot his hard hat and safety glasses!