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The national leader of a citizens' border watch group said his Texas point man resigned this week for personal reasons, not because group members are outlaw-prone racists. But in a resignation letter e-mailed this week, Bill Parmley wrote about disagreements and confusion among the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps groups in Texas that he was overseeing and racism in the ranks of the Goliad chapter. Parmley quit his post as director of the fledgling Texas chapters, locally based versions of the Arizona group that held a headline-grabbing border watch mission in April. Since then, the two leaders who organized the original...

PHARR — Once a powerful and militant organization in the Chicano Liberation Movement, the Brown Berets made it known Wednesday that they will oppose the Minuteman border watch group with physical force if necessary. "We want to send the message ‘think twice before you come here,’" said Pablo Delgado, a Brown Beret leader, at a press conference at the Hidalgo County Democratic Party headquarters. The Minutemen have said they will come to Texas in October, although it is still unclear whether South Texas is in their outreach plans. Hidalgo County Democratic Party chairman Juan Maldonado said the party does not...

The president of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps of Texas resigned by e-mail late Monday evening, criticizing a lack of structure in the group and claiming racist undertones in the Goliad-area chapter. "The Sarco group has chosen to go a different course than what I feel is in the best interest of the organization nationally and locally," Bill Parmley of the small community near Goliad wrote in the letter e-mailed late Monday night to Chris Simcox, national president of the Arizona-based Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, and Goliad County Sheriff Robert DeLaGarza. The Advocate obtained a copy of the letter late...

ZAPATA, — Aurelio and Carolyn Talamantez, along with their trusty chow, Arcas, hunker down in the shade beneath the awning of a small trailer and watch cars whiz by on a deserted stretch of U.S. Highway 83 for most of the day. Judging by their log book, they are only occasionally interrupted by the workers of H&P’s Rig 142 going to and from their job drilling for natural gas on the Ridge Crest Dominguez ranch, a roughly 1,500-acre tract of land bordered on the south by Falcon Lake. The Talamantezes are the gatekeepers, the protectors of private property. Only those...

Border education, immigration and security issues generated a heated debate among local officials and concerned citizens at a town hall meeting Saturday evening. U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, attended the panel discussion organized by LULAC Council 12, Campus Leadership Initiative, and Webb County Young Democrats. "We need to make sure Laredo has all the resources it needs to stay as the top land port in the nation," Cuellar said in an interview before the panel. Cuellars four fellow panelists were Texas A&M International University Professor Michael Yoder, District 3 City Councilman John Galo, Webb County Deputy Chief Alberto Martinez, and...

Nationwide concern over the flood of illegal immigrants crossing the border from Mexico has led to the formation of multiple groups of private citizens who have taken it upon themselves to monitor the region. In April, about 1,000 volunteers monitored a slice of border in Arizona for the entire month. After that, more such organizations sprang up, but others who opposed what they felt was the "vigilante" mentality of those groups quickly formed to oppose them. One group recently formed in Goliad as an official affiliate of one of the Arizona groups after reports of an increasing number of illegal...

The Laredo-area League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) are urging City Council to create a city ordinance to deter the Minutemen Project as nearby El Cenizo did so last week. "Texas LULAC does not wish to belittle the Minutemen Project," said Estela Quintanilla, director for LULAC District XIV. "But we oppose the project because it employs tactics against immigrants … and tends to breed racism." The Minutemen Project, a nationally organized group of citizens aiming to stop illegal immigration on the U.S. borders, already has two active groups in Texas with one mission in October in the El Paso...

Ed Austin had gotten tired of the corporate, busy city life after a successful career in the 1980s and did what many unhappy city dwellers dream of buying a ranch as a getaway. But it was much more than a getaway. Austins move to buy the 8,600-acre Las Vivoritas Ranch in nearby Jim Hogg County in 1990 would take him on a 15-year path of creating a slice of paradise not only for his family but for the environment in borderland South Texas. "My wife and I wanted a home in the sandy country that is like the great American...

About 60 participate in Goliad meeting GOLIAD - Residents and landowners interested in becoming members of the Goliad chapter of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps attended a meeting on Wednesday in which they discussed preparations for the launch of the civilian-led border watch in October. About 60 people attended the meeting, which was the first held by the newly formed chapter that in October plans to become part of a nationwide border watchdog group. The organization's focus is to aid law enforcement in keeping undocumented immigrants from crossing into the U.S. "I'm not against immigration, but I am against illegal...

GOLIAD - If you're going to be a minuteman and patrol the border for illegal immigrants, you'll have to behave. That was the message given to about 40 presumably would-be recruits who showed up in the 103-degree heat for the first meeting of the Goliad chapter of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps. "You've now joined a higher calling. If you're going to do this, you're really going to have to search your soul and ask yourself whether you can follow procedures," Kenneth Buelter of Sarco, vice-president of the newly formed Goliad chapter, told the men and women gathered late Wednesday...

The leader of the Goliad chapter of the Minuteman Project said 75 to 100 people are interested in joining the group, and that they plan to meet next week to organize a civilian-led border watch that would start in October. Bill Parmley, president of the newly formed Minuteman Civil Defense Corps of Texas-Goliad Chapter, said members will meet at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Goliad County Fairgrounds. They will discuss operation rules and how to align the Goliad chapter with 10 other Minuteman states to become part of the overall Minuteman Civil Defense Corps. The group's focus is preventing undocumented...

Controversial Minuteman operations in Texas are among issues to be discussed next week in Del Rio, Texas, by the state's border sheriffs, including El Paso County Sheriff Leo Samaniego, officials said. The July 5-8 gathering of the Texas Border Sheriff's Coalition will also discuss drug smuggling and border violence. Samaniego in the past has criticized a lack of federal resources to control the border.Volunteers for the Minuteman group plan to watch for illegal border activity.

Minutemen Project organizers plan to set up shop along the border in Laredo this October, but local officials are not putting out the welcome mat. Volunteers with the Minutemen Project, an activist organization formed to halt illegal immigration along the U.S.-Mexico border, said theyve already completed a successful inaugural operation in Arizona in April. Now, the plan is to expand, to California as well as Texas. Similar missions are planned in California this summer and in South Texas in October. The Arizona effort was led by a unified coalition, but it has since splintered into several spin-offs. Organizers for one...

About 20 people representing San Antonio labor, civil rights and veterans groups took to the steps of City Hall on Friday to decry the growing presence of the Minutemen in Texas. The Minuteman Project, a civilian border-watch organization, established its first Texas affiliate this week in Goliad after an April launch in Arizona. The activists labeled the organization a group of racist, un-American vigilantes. "Where are the Minutemen on the Canada border?" said Rosa Rosales, national vice president of the League of United Latin American Citizens Southwest. "Where you see dark-brown faces coming across, that's where they're at." Bill Parmley,...

GOLIAD - A day after Goliad-area citizens were introduced to the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps' model to patrol the nation's borders, Goliad County's sheriff said he'll work with the volunteers but stopped short of endorsing the organization. Sheriff Robert DeLaGarza, who has been working with citizens who want to stop illegal immigration through south Goliad County, said Tuesday he's not sure the program offered by Tombstone, Ariz., newspaperman Chris Simcox is any different than what the residents of Sarco are doing already. "If they stick to and train to what they're saying, then everything will be fine," DeLaGarza said. "My...

GOLIAD — Coyotes are known to take the back roads — tiny farm-to-market roads no one takes, isolated highways and small-town county roads. "They are smart about it," Goliad rancher Elizardo "Charlie" Hernandez said of illegal immigrant smugglers who are paid more than $800 to shuttle people from Mexico. "They don’t get caught." More than 200 Texans from as far away as Houston and the Rio Grande Valley met in Goliad on Monday night to organize the first Minuteman Project in Texas, hoping to curb illegal alien activity like the type Hernandez sees on his property at least once a...

FALFURRIAS - As drug violence escalates in the state's large border towns and snakes its way up interstate highways to major cities, south Texas farmers and ranchers are struggling to find a solution to the steady stream of illegal immigrants who trespass on their property, destroy fences and leave behind trash, or worse, the bodies of those who can't keep up on the journey. Texas' border with Mexico is not the same as it was 25 years ago, when south Texas farmers and ranchers might hire a few of the illegals who crossed it to find seasonal work and support...

Founder of civil patrol group presents his case to residents of Goliad County GOLIAD - The federal government's inability to secure the borders of the United States has led to a revival of the old civil defense movement, Arizona newspaperman Chris Simcox told more than 100 people gathered for the first Texas-based Minuteman Civil Defense Corps meeting on Monday. Begun in Arizona, the movement has a model of success to slow illegal immigration and send a message to elected officials that ordinary Americans are prepared to do the job they won't, Simcox said. South Texas ranchers are considering creating a...

Illegal immigration concerns residents of South Texas city HOUSTON - The leader of a controversial civilian patrol group plans to come Monday to a place that carries significance in the historic conflict between Texas and Mexico. But Minuteman Civil Defense Corps leader Chris Simcox said it is only coincidence that he will meet with about 100 landowners in Goliad, where Texas revolutionaries were massacred by Mexican forces in 1836 and became martyrs for independence. Gen. Sam Houston's troops took revenge at the Battle of San Jacinto, where they went into the fight shouting: "Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad!" Lifelong Goliad...

Fresh from their self-proclaimed triumph in Arizona, a civilian patrol group is considering a similar effort in Texas. At the risk of sounding inhospitable, we have two words for the group: Stay away. The Minuteman Project, credited with capturing hundreds of undocumented immigrants along the Arizona-Mexico border, was praised by some government officials, including California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, but the potential for disaster trumps whatever benefits may arise. President Bush called them vigilantes, an appropriate term for a group seeking to take over the duties of law enforcement officials. And while the Minutemen left Arizona without incident this time around,...

HARLINGEN, Texas - Volunteer border patrols known as the Minuteman Project alerted officials to hundreds of illegal immigrants in Arizona and were praised by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, but they're getting a pre-emptive cold shoulder in Texas. The group drew international attention in April when volunteers showed up in Arizona to prove the border could be secured simply by putting more personnel there. They did not apprehend immigrants. But organizer Chris Simcox said the group alerted the U.S. Border Patrol to suspicious behavior and helped catch 335 immigrants. Simcox said if Congress didn't buttress the Border Patrol with National Guard...