Thread: O.C.'s Jim Gilchrist wrought trouble for himself with MMP

Read Original Article (Link Adjusted by Mod to prevent thread stretching)

The Morning Read: Border burden
O.C.'s Jim Gilchrist wrought trouble for himself with Minuteman Project, but he's not backing off plan to counter illegal crossings.

By MICHAEL CORONADO
The Orange County Register

Social revolution is exhausting work.

And a current champion, retired accountant Jim Gilchrist, is tired, stressed and unhappy.

The hate mail has increased. Human-rights activists protested in front of his Aliso Viejo home over the weekend. And members of the Latin American gang Mara Salvatrucha have promised to do worse.

"I'd rather be fishing," said the 56-year-old Gilchrist, taking a drag from his Pall Mall cigarette at his home.

"I never thought it would get this big."

In just a couple of weeks, Gilchrist will lead nearly 1,000 men and women from across the country into the Arizona desert, where they will search for Mexicans and other Latinos crossing the border illegally.

The so-called Minuteman Project has grown exponentially since Gilchrist first sent out an e-mail last fall seeking a few dozen volunteers willing to spend days in the desert scanning deep valleys and unforgiving plateaus along the Arizona-Mexico border.

"Realistically, I thought I would get 12 (volunteers)," Gilchrist said.

Instead, he got 800 in 60 days. And the ire of the Mexican government, a violent gang and human-rights advocates who despise him.

Still, Gilchrist, a Vietnam veteran, says the only person who can intimidate him at this point in his life is a Marine Corps drill instructor.

"I certainly would like to be liked," he added.

Next month, hundreds of vehicles are expected to pepper the vast 600-square-mile desert stretched across 80 miles of border from Tombstone to Douglas, Ariz. From the sky above, a fleet of 16 private aircraft manned by 40 volunteer pilots will do the same.

Volunteers will carry night-vision goggles and binoculars to search and cell phones and radios to report. And some will also carry weapons, to the worry of human-rights activists and Border Patrol agents.

"It takes one lunatic that isn't properly screened," said Ray Ybarra, an Ira Glasser Racial Justice Fellow with the ACLU in Douglas. "The general concern of what these volunteers have planned for next month is there can be a mob mentality."

Meanwhile, ACLU attorneys are trying to figure out if there are legal grounds to pursue the Minutemen, Ybarra said. Mexican President Vicente Fox told reporters last week that his government will also use legal means to try to stop the Minuteman Project before it begins.

Perched on hilltops and other elevated land forms, Gilchrist and his fellow Minutemen and women will use high-powered optics and heat-sensing devices to scan swaths of desert in areas authorities consider among the most porous, where many of those seeking entry into the United States illegally cross.

When they spot their subjects, they say, they'll call into the Border Patrol and relay coordinates for pickup.

Gilchrist says he thought of the Minuteman name one day while driving to Starbucks for coffee. He insists that the project is a peaceful call to action and that violence will not be tolerated.

Ultimately, Gilchrist is hopeful that the large turnout will send an unmistakable message to the Bush administration:Thecountry's border policy is broken and its southern boundary undefended.

"I struck a common nerve," he said.

Minuteman idea has hit home

Gilchrist is a small-framed man with large smoky-hazel eyes and wavy salt-and-pepper-streaked hair.

Inside his home, a teapot painted like a cow sits on a stovetop underneath white cabinets covered in chicken wire. His living room and kitchen look like something out of a country-living magazine.

His two Chihuahuas, Misty and Tia, shuffle around on hardwood floors.

Gilchrist, married with two daughters, was never much of a revolutionary.

For 15 years, he crunched numbers at his accounting practice in Newport Beach and Irvine, all the while stewing about the changing face of Orange County.

But his was just another grumbling voice on the sideline until one day, "I noticed people here complaining about it but no one was doing anything."

So, he began the Minuteman Project.

Today, Gilchrist answers an estimated 30 phone calls and responds to nearly 600 e-mails from those interested in the Minuteman Project.

"We don't want arrogant, obstinate, mean people," he said. Still, he realizes there are those who can make things can go terribly wrong.

"Nothing is fail-safe."

Several of the applicants get turned down. One is too angry. Two others focus too much on rifles and handguns.

The phone rings and a reporter from the Times of London asks Gilchrist for an interview. He promises to call her back a little later. The more media attention, the better, he says. That way no one can accuse the Minutemen of violence where there is none.

A small ashtray on the patio of his home is filled with cigarette butts. The phone rings again 15 minutes later. Ten minutes later, he ignores another call.

"I really want to step down and get my life back," he said.

For him, issue is broken policy

Gilchrist wants something made crystal clear, he said.

"I'm not a racist."

He points to his son-in-law, who is Mexican.

"I'm very proud of him."

The issue is a broken border policy for which no one is being held accountable, he explained. That means a changing country and a worried Gilchrist.

"I don't see the United States as a melting pot," he said. "Instead, it's a big bag of marbles seeking dominance (over one another). There is a lack of assimilation."

Gilchrist paints a picture of the past, when those who migrated during the '40s and '50s retained their own values but worked to fit into the American culture. Immigrants learned English, he said, and sought to be embrace those traits that a typical American embodies, he said.

Today, there are too many subcultures grabbing for power, he says. When pressed for specifics about what makes the American culture, Gilchrist admits it's difficult to put into words.

He boils it down this way: When in Rome, do as the Romans, he says.

Gilchrist is proud of what the Minuteman Project has become.

But despite the overwhelming interest, he still wonders what he got himself into.

"It's too much to keep up with," he said.

Is it worth it?

He draws his hand to his brow and looks downward before answering.

"Yeah, it is."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTACT US: (949) 465-5424 or mcoronado@ocregister.com

Moderator edited to add story link/url

I thought this was a good story in the sense it allows the reader to get to know Jim better. What do you think? Should we put this on the home tomorrow?

W

occutegirl,

Please remember to always include a link for your news articles.

I have edited your post to include the link.

watchman

Our thoughts and prayers are with you Jim Gilchrest.

ALIPAC said: I thought this was a good story in the sense it allows the reader to get to know Jim better. What do you think? Should we put this on the home tomorrow?


Yes, it needs to be seen.

Post it. Jim deserves all we can do for him.

You got it. Hey Redgirl1, mind adding this as one of your homepage updates tomorrow from this thread?

W

If you post it, I will change the title of the article to something more beffiting.

WELL US IN CA. WOULD LOVE THE OPERTUNITY TO STAND ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STREETS WITH A SIGN THAT THAT READS


ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS ARE economic TERRORIST

SCHOOLS
WAGES
S.S.
MEDI-CAL
E.R.
STANDARD OF LIVING

We should have an award for the professor who best exemplifies the need to abolish tenure. Call it "The Churchill" after Ward Churchill

Originally Posted by occutegirl

We should have an award for the professor who best exemplifies the need to abolish tenure. Call it "The Churchill" after Ward Churchill

Woot!!!! I did love it when I first heard it (and wrote a longer reply but then erased it). However, we will forever cause this fool to be a martyr, is that what we want? I would rather have him shrivel into blissful obsurity, that moment, just before the last swirl in the bowl sloshes out the bottom, just a little wimper, and then it is over.

Damn, I need to get some sleep, if I am making pottie jokes But I guess that WardC makes me think of a WC