Step over the border.
Minuteman reading material.
Posted on 10/31/2005 1:30:15 PM PST by Ladycalif
A red dot appeared in the darkness, revealing the infrared beam as it scanned us. A moment later we met the two Minuteman Civil Defense Corps volunteers who put us in that beam of thin red light.
They were lookouts who stationed themselves on a bare hilltop. They loomed. Two shadowy, faceless pillars.
(Excerpt) Read more at avpress.com ...
Step over the border.
Minuteman reading material.
ping
I see a coupla new pictures here, don't I?
That first picture. If it wasn't such a serious matter, I'd be laughing hysterically.
Thank you guys! I believe you are performing a much needed and appreciated service. The Federal Government refuses to stand up to it obligations since it is in the pockets of the corporations, who in turn want to drive down the wages of every American by employing ILLEGAL ALIENS. Low wages, no benefits, no taxes, and even more important no fear of being sued by employees.
Very cool pictures.
Has there been any developments on the Canadian border minuteman organization? While illegals flood the south, the terrorists come in through the north. ARGH!!!!!
sounds like you live in norcross or shambodia LOL
Love that Gilchrist for Congress sign on the border! LOL
Great pics! After nominating Alito it would be nice if the President would take the border/immigration issue seriously.
I wish I was young enough and healthier, I sure would like to be there.
I agree completely. My grandparents came to the US legally just prior to WW2 the way people must be required to enter this country. Then to repay this great nation and what it provided them, my grandfather and his three brothers all served in our military during the second world war in both pacific and european conflicts.
More than likely a laser sight, since the human eye cannot see infrared.
I'm going to use that phrase that a not so popular lady FReeper used years ago...
Eagles Up to ya'll...Seems fitting for the times...
Happy Halloween.
Great job!
(love the Gilcrest sign! LOL)
The battle for the border
Minutemen make their own stand
A red dot appeared in the darkness, revealing the infrared beam as it scanned us.
A moment later we met the two Minuteman Civil Defense Corps volunteers who put us in that beam of thin red light.
They were lookouts who stationed themselves on a bare hilltop. They loomed. Two shadowy, faceless pillars.
We must have sounded like a parade approaching, a couple of journalists with our boots creaking and cameras clanking. We had come to see and hear what the "Minuteman" phenomenon was all about.
Discouraged by the noise of our approach, one of the self-appointed border sentinels retrieved a cigarette from his truck and lit up.
"A smoker?" The other man grunted in disapproval.
The ember would be visible for miles.
"We're making so much noise anyway," the smoker said casually, cursing.
It was still early. With sunset hardly an hour gone, few of the illegal border-crossers, who were the subject of the Minutemen's attention, would have dared to cross the border from Mexico yet.
We settled in to watch and wait.
One man scanned the railroad track a few yards to the north of us. The rest faced the border, now cloaked in full darkness.
Hardly two paces below us, empty water jugs lay hidden in a bush - a scrap of evidence that "illegals" had passed this way and might again.
In the moonless starlight the noises of the valley felt close.
A jackrabbit crashed through brush. A dog barked on the opposite slope.
The California-Mexico border rises from the desert, about 140 miles of wall, steel fence, piled boulders and cliffs.
At some points, nothing but sage brush divides California from its counterpart, Baja California, to the south.
It functions as a political line in the sand designed, as one Minuteman said, "to show where we end and they begin." We, to the Minutemen, meaning U.S. citizens. And "they" meaning the tide of humanity that flows north from Mexico.
The Minuteman corps came here - and brought their sidearms - to show the government in Washington that they want that line enforced against drugs, terrorists and illegal immigration.
The issues raised by the Minuteman movement thread their way all the way back to the streets of the Antelope Valley.
Day labor hiring points. Immigrants selling flowers by the roadside. An entire private prison in the Antelope Valley built to house detainees in the country illegally and another such facility at Mira Loma.
"The numbers are astronomical. It's creating an incredibly heavy burden for L.A. County tax payers," said Tony Bell, assistant chief deputy to Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich.
In one year, undocumented residents cost the county $360 million in health-care services alone, Bell said. Add to that $150 million in law enforcement costs, not to mention social services and schools.
Antonovich describes the situation as a "very serious, catastrophic economic toll."
Jails brim with citizens of other countries. The health-care system threatens total collapse.
The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps put border security on the national radar with their first operation in Arizona. Within months the corps had expanded to California and sparked other groups to join the movement.
Up on the bald hilltop, an hour of darkness passed before the smoker, Charlie Violich, spoke again, a low whisper heavy with irony.
"Exciting isn't it?"
Violich is a painting contractor from Watsonville, in the Central Valley. Days after joining up with the Minutemen, he transformed from commercial painter to leader of the night watch looking for illegal border traffic.
Competition from painters who employ undocumented employees and undercut his bids convinced Violich the border should be sealed. Drug traffic and the potential for terrorism also prompted his journey to the borderlands.
"I just think it's time to stand up and do something, since our elected officials are doing nothing," Violich said.
So the painter joined the Minutemen at a site 70 miles east of San Diego, where Interstate 8 dips toward the border. A string of tiny towns line the highway. Towns with the ring of isolation: Boulevard, Manzanita and Jacumba. In early October, the area became Ground Zero in America's argument about national security and immigration.
In Jacumba, wind-scoured mountains jut above 4,000 feet, the mountains themselves a jumble of giant boulder piles. A Shell station in the remote town marks the center point of 80 barren miles of freeway.
Forty-five miles divide it from the nearest civilization. Out here, civilization means the nearest McDonald's. Out here they notice outsiders.
In October, locals in the borderland noticed plenty of strangers.
The shock troops of the national dispute over illegal immigration cruised into Jacumba riding in trucks and SUVs.
They knew their adversaries would be waiting.
One of the groups that opposes the self-actuated border defense corps is called Gente Unida . Loosely translated as "People United" the group's umbrella shades dozens of Mexican and north-of-the-border activist organizations that oppose what the Minutemen are doing and what they stand for.
Chris Simcox of Arizona and Jim Gilchrist, California congressional candidate, founded the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps.
The corps began its work on the Arizona border in April, creating a national news story and a grass-roots movement. For 30 days, 857 civilian volunteers watched Arizona's border with Mexico near the town of Naco.
The Minutemen used their visibility to prove that simply raising the number of people watching the line could discourage illegal immigration.
Minuteman spotters, according to media reports, aided the U.S. Border Patrol in apprehension of 349 illegal border crossers. The rate in the area dropped from 500 per day caught crossing to as few as 15.
Some attributed that decrease to operations by Mexican military that turned back potential crossers. The Minutemen felt the point was served, however.
Starting Oct. 1, the group expanded its protest to all four of the southwestern states that border Mexico, as well as eight states along the Canadian border.
Inspired by the April event, two other civilian border-watch organizations formed in California.
The histories of the three groups are as intertwined as their memberships, but their ideologies subtly vary.
Friends of the Border Patrol, led by Andy Ramirez , shun media attention in order to focus on clandestine spotting of border traffic. Firearms are not a big part of the Friends' operations.
The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps' California division, under Tim Donnelly, divides its attention between media-focused day events and night operations meant to spot border traffic.
The Minuteman Corps allows members to carry holstered handguns but tries to avoid high-danger areas.
The California Minutemen is a separate loose collaboration of independent agents that follow Jim Chase. More militant, the group stakes out 24-hour vigils, hoping to turn away armed drug traffickers and human smugglers as well as illegal migrant workers.
For firearms, Chase allows "anything that's legal," including rifles and shotguns.
Groups such as Gente Unida say they fear armed Minutemen will attack illegal border crossers. Many Gente opponents brand the Minuteman movement a racist, hate-oriented or anti-Latino. Enrique Morones , a dual citizen and long-time opponent of strict borders, formed Gente Unida. The coalition welcomes "anyone who opposes the Minutemen," Morones said.
Coalition members range from volunteer desert rescue workers to avowed anarchists. Gente has protested border rallies and lobbied local, state and federal governments to oppose Minutemen and similar organizations.
During a week in early October, each side generated a show of force along the border.
A leader emerges
The California division of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps started in the Lake Arrowhead office of Tim Donnelly, just a month before the operation began in October.
Donnelly, a small-business owner, initially refused the state leader post. He could not envision himself as captain of such a mission.
Donnelly is a salesman, an English major and a life-long loner, he said. He had no police or military training and no experience with public speaking. Also, he initially doubted the cause.
Arizona border activists won Donnelly's confidence in the Minuteman cause. Simcox approached Donnelly twice, asking him to take charge of the California operation. Finally Donnelly accepted.
As Donnelly tells it, he was spurred to join because of a rising population of illegal workers brought to his town.
A contractor "from the deep South" brought in large numbers of low-wage, undocumented workers, Donnelly said.
"We went from this beautiful resort town to a place where Spanish was taught in our schools," he said.
The objection seemed to stem from Spanish used as a primary instructional medium.
Donnelly's view is that welfare and health care policies, as well as lax regulation of employers, resulted in rewards for people who violate the border and those who exploit them.
Despite his anger, Donnelly felt wary of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, until he read their Standard Operating Procedure online.
The "S.O.P.," he noted, rejects racism and supremacist ideology. It requires Minutemen to obey all laws and keep sidearms holstered. It forbids them from confronting or approaching suspects or even talking to or waving at them.
The S.O.P. focuses on sending a message to Congress. The group's stated role is to "observe, report and direct Border Patrol" and other officials to "suspected illegal aliens or illegal activities."
Even with these assurances, Donnelly questioned his own motivations.
"One of my questions was, 'Am I one of these haters?' I know I'm not a racist," said Donnelly, who often points out that his wife "has brown skin." Her family legally immigrated from the Philippines.
"But (why) had I just become so angry?"
Before he reached Naco, Ariz., he formed his reasons for joining the cause.
"I'm not angry at the people who are in such desperate straits that they're willing to risk death," he said. "I'm angry with my government for taking my tax money and rewarding the people that exploit them - and I'm not even allowed to have a say in it."
In Arizona, two experiences pushed the loner toward leadership.
The first was the thanks of a landowner who said she finally was sleeping through the night since allowing a Minuteman watch on her land.
She said her dogs barked all night because of illegal traffic outside her house, and she carried a gun whenever she left the house at night - even to take out the trash.
"Her greatest fear in life," Donnelly said, "was to go outside … and to be surrounded by 30 men and humiliated as they raped her one by one."
"The border now had a face for me." Donnelly said. "She was about the age that my mother would be if she were alive. I can't imagine my mother walking around with that fear."
Donnelly's second nudge toward leadership was a run-in with a journalist.
"I felt the compulsion to get the message out," he said. "It was a stroke of genius that I hadn't seen before. We were there to focus the attention of the world on our border."
Donnelly started seeking out any reporter who would talk to him.
"Now instead of throwing things at my TV, I get the opportunity to be on television," he said.
"This isn't about politics. It's about whether this is going to be a special place called America where we have the rule of law and the government belongs to the people — of the people, by the people, for the people," he said.
"I'm not a Republican or a Democrat. I'm an American and a Minuteman. … We still have a nation of Minutemen, but some of them have forgotten. I aim to remind them who they are."
The mission begins
A few weeks later Donnelly's ideals met their first major test.
With the help of his best friend and director of operations, Gregg Imus , as well as a handful of lieutenants, Donnelly organized 100 or so volunteers who showed up in Jacumba in early October.
Only volunteers and invited media knew where to find the post. The corps set tight security, hoping to avoid the violent protests that put the Friends of the Border Patrol group on the defensive.
Representatives from Gente Unida stormed the first training session of the Friends — banging pots, taunting, hurling profanities and chanting, "No war! No borders!"
Videos published online by the Friends and the protesters show Gente Unida members knocking the hats off senior citizens and overturning the sign-up table.
Imus and Donnelly did not want a repeat performance.
They set 13 shaded posts, named for the 13 original colonies, on a 2½-mile stretch of border in O'neil Valley, south of Jacumba. The posts stood in a 60-foot buffer zone of public land that runs the length of the border.
This was the domain of off-road vehicles and firearms enthusiasts. Sounds of gunfire snapped and rattled across the valley as locals tested their aim at makeshift shooting ranges.
The Minutemen named the dirt tracks leading down to the border road, calling one "Constitution," another "Patriot."
The border fence in front of the posts consisted of five-foot steel upright beams set at four-foot intervals with railroad track welded half way up as a cross beam. A tall man could step from one country to the other almost without breaking stride.
"Look at this fence," Imus said. "Talk about minimal protection!"
When all was set, Donnelly addressed his team for the first time, standing in the back of a Jeep with three American flags waving behind him.
"There are those who say we're here to deny rights. Nothing could be further from the truth," he said. "Those who oppose us say that it's OK to have a sub-class. We bring water and food to those who are dying in the desert. … Others support the status quo — 455 deaths so far this year."
He read from the preamble to the Constitution.
"The idea that the government is answerable to the people is a message of hope — not hate," he said.
The leader went on to critique the press, saying they had characterized the Minutemen as racist.
He also criticized President George W. Bush for referring to them as vigilantes. He called on the Minutemen to be vigilant instead, and he closed with the rallying cry, "The Minutemen are coming! The Minutemen are coming!"
Someone in the crowd yelled back, "The Minutemen are here!"
Donnelly turned the microphone over to congressional hopeful Jim Gilchrist, who had come to help kick off the event.
"This is not about the race card," Gilchrist said, indicating an entourage that included supporters of black, Asian and Latino ethnicity, as well as senior and physically challenged supporters.
"This may not be the cure-all for our problems, but it's a great start," he said. "Send me to Congress so I can send law enforcement down here to do their job, so we can do ours."
Faces in the crowd
The listening crowd included small business owners, former military and law enforcement personnel, health-care workers and humanitarian aid volunteers. Some were people who immigrated legally. A significant number were women, and quite a few described themselves as politically liberal on other issues.
John March , of Valencia, stood with Gilchrist. March's son David, a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy, was killed three years ago, and the killer fled to Mexico, joining 3,000 other murderers of U.S. citizens, March said.
"You're trying to stop criminals from coming across our borders. Thank you so much," he said.
Another Gilchrist supporter, Tony Dolz of Santa Monica, said he comes from a "prototypical immigrant family."
Born in Cuba, Dolz escaped to Mexico with his parents. They applied for visas and later citizenship in the United States. Dolz took his oath in 1976 at the age of 19.
"There was the feeling that not all things were well around the world, but I felt safe in America," he said.
He met his wife while studying in Scandinavia, and she went through the immigration process as well. While expressing great pride in his Hispanic heritage, Dolz added that many who have immigrated legally resent illegal traffic across the border.
Long Beach native Marvin Stewart works for the Department of Veterans Affairs and runs a Christian ministry highlighting Christian civic responsibility, he said. "As a member of the black community," Stewart said, he felt compelled to dispel the charge of racism by joining the movement.
"As a Christian, I have a responsibility to go and speak the truth and bring the light," he said. "My message is to enforce the laws that we have here in this land."
Adam Thomas , owner of the Jeep that served as the rally point, moved among volunteers, offering water and medical aid. He toted a backpack filled with first aid equipment, including a defibrillator. Thomas had been an Army medic, but he now works as network engineer for a defense contractor. He carried a Tazer along with his sidearm.
The San Diego resident laughed when he described himself.
"Don't miss the liberal thing," he said. "I'm out here doing this quasi-military, stereotypically conservative thing, and I'm a member of PETA, an animal rights activist, an environmentalist."
By the end of day one, Thomas had treated nothing more serious than a splinter.
As sunset drew near, the Minuteman corps packed up its gear and headed back to camp. There had been no sign of a migrant on the border, nor any protesters, violent or otherwise.
Monday: The border activist debate begins.
Hear the voices the Minuteman corps rank-and-file - and those who oppose them on both sides of the border.
tgee@avpress.com
You know the Minutemen are doing a good job by the way they're making the open border fanatics crazy.
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