Posted on 04/18/2005 2:39:17 PM PDT by Spiff
Minuteman founder leaving border early but volunteers to remain
By Arthur H. Rotstein
ASSOCIATED PRESS
1:32 p.m. April 18, 2005
TUCSON, Ariz. The chief organizer of civilian volunteers who are spending the month watching for illegal immigrants and smugglers along the Mexican border is pulling out of the Minuteman Project early, a project official said Monday.
Jim Gilchrist, a retired accountant from California, will leave Arizona on Wednesday and plans to appear before the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus next week in Washington. He will be taking the official Minuteman Project name and a group of volunteers.
"He is claiming victory ... so he felt it would be appropriate to wrap up his participation this week and prepare to go to Washington," said Chris Simcox, the project's field operations director.
Simcox, who also plans to be in Washington next week, said Gilchrist isn't severing his ties to the project or with other organizers.
Despite Gilchrist's departure and Simcox's temporary absence, Simcox said patrols will continue as planned until April 30, albeit under the name of Simcox's organization Civil Homeland Defense.
The volunteers, some of whom are armed, arrived on April 1 and began spreading out a few days later along a 23-mile stretch of desert between the border communities of Naco and Douglas. They alert authorities when they see someone cross the border illegally, but are not allowed to detain anyone.
Law enforcement officials have said they fear the project will lead to vigilante violence, an accidental confrontation between armed volunteers and authorities, or a dangerous encounter with the violent smugglers who use the area.
The volunteers claim their reports have led the Border Patrol to more than 260 illegal immigrants. The Border Patrol has acknowledged receiving more than 300calls from Naco and Douglas, resulting in hundreds of apprehensions, but the agency will not say whether any calls came from project volunteers.
The MMP can't win for losing.
You are great!
You think these people are lying?
Instead of counting replies at FR, you might want to count votes in Congress.
THE CITIZENS SHOULD FINALLY BE OUTRAGED! Cong. Mark Foley
Source: LOU DOBBS - CNN
Tonights Lou Dobbs is a must see! If you miss it read the transcript later at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/ldt.html
Minutemen Project organizers Chris Simcox and Jim Gilchrest announced today that the project will be extended across the Mexican border and part of the Canadian border.
Protests of businesses hiring illegal aliens are being organized to cover the entire United States. Now, we can ALL be involved!
The MMP has recieved requests of over 10,000 people wanting to actively join the biggest neighborhood watch in history.
Congressman Mark Foley (R), ways and means committee is interviewed and states about our border security and illegal invasion, This is as important as anything we do!
Then, Dick Schneider of the Sierra Club discusses whether the group should push for limits on immigration in order to cut population growth.
Todays poll:
Do you believe the impact of excessive illegal immigration is a legitimate environmental concern?
Yes 94% 1010 votes
No 6% 59 votes
Total: 1069 votes
http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/lou.dobbs.tonight/
Who gives a rats ass about people making money from people sneaking through gaps in the border? I guess their subsidy is over too! LOL!
You need to get a clue about the border.
Are you at a loss on the cross border commerce subject?
It's interesting your concern for these small businesses, nary a word for the taxpayers.
Cleaning up (dissolving) the mex govt. would solve everyones problems. Your side never brings that up.
Are you referring to those "undocumented travel agents" we commonly refer to as "coyotes"?
We need to keep sounding the alarm of the invasion as destructive of both cultures.
Transcript is up, here's a bit on the MMP
DOBBS: Tonight, new developments in the Minuteman Project, the project that brought volunteers, hundreds of them, together in Arizona, to help patrol our southern border with Mexico, you know, the same group of volunteers who Mexican President Vicente Fox called vigilantes and whom President George Bush also referred to as vigilantes, unfortunately.
The volunteer group today said it is planning now a major expansion along our southern border, and it plans to begin monitoring our northern border, as well. The Minutemen are also launching a new operation to expose U.S. companies hiring illegal aliens. Casey Wian has our report. Casey?
CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Lou, it's really a remarkable announcement today of an expansion of the Minuteman Project that's a result of the project overwhelming success, that even succeeds the expectation of its founders. Let me tell you some numbers we just got from the Minuteman Project today.
So far, as of today, 770 minuteman volunteers have been trained by the project's organizers and monitor the border for at least one full day's shift. They say they've had over 10,000 calls and e-mails from people interested in volunteering to help monitor this 23-mile stretch of Arizona border. They also say the Minutemen have assisted in 280 apprehensions of illegal aliens along that stretch of the border. Now, the Border Patrol of course denies those numbers saying they are inflated. But it does not deny the fact that the Minutemen have in effect shut down that stretch of the Arizona border by their mere presence.
What is going to happen now is, Chris Simcox, one of the founders and organizers of the Minuteman Project, when the it -- when the project in Arizona ends at the end of this month, Simcox will begin consulting with organizers in California, Texas, and New Mexico to set up a Minuteman Project for the entire southern border, and they expect that to be operational by this fall. Perhaps in October. And another expansion of the program, northward. They have volunteers in Michigan and Idaho who are also interested in monitoring the Canadian border and that could begin even sooner because Simcox says the volunteers don't need as much training because the Canadian border is not as violent as the Mexican border. Also, Jim Gilchrist, one of the other co-founders of the Minuteman Project is going to be leaving active duty in Arizona to begin, as you mentioned, Lou, concentrating on employers who hire illegal aliens. He's going to be organizing protests -- something he has shown with the Minuteman Project he's very good at -- organizing protests against employers of illegal aliens, and he's going to be after cities who sponsor day laborer centers which, of course, are overwhelmingly populated by a majority of illegal aliens. He's going to be traveling to Washington, D.C. next week to meet with the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus. That at the invitation of Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo who has sent the Minuteman Project a letter of congratulations saying, job well done so far. Lou?
DOBBS: You know, it's absolutely right, Casey. I had the opportunity to spend a little time down there with you along the border with the Minutemen. The success is remarkable. What is the reaction of Chris Simcox and Gilchrist and others, because they have -- basically, were vilified in the weeks and months leading up to this project. They have obviously conducted themselves extremely well. It's a terrific group of concerned, caring Americans. What's they're reaction now, that they're succeeding and some of the rhetoric about them is tapering off a bit?
WIAN: Well, as you know I've spent a lot of time with Chris Simcox and Jim Gilchrist over the past several months -- the preparations leading up to the Minuteman Project, and then throughout the project so far this month. And before it began things were tense. They were very, I will say, stressed out. Very worried how things were going to go. Now it has shifted to overwhelming joy. They're thrilled. They feel vindicated. And that's reflected by the fact they are taking the project national -- Lou.
DOBBS: And demonstrating to a national audience the importance that remains in this country of citizens participating actively in their community, and being certainly an active -- about the issues that are great concern to them and, of course, importance to the country and certainly this is a high among those issues.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0504/18/ldt.01.html
INVASION USA
Border Patrol union
supports Minutemen
Says it has had no complaints about monitors, blasts Bush over amnesty
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