EVAN CARAVELLI/Arizona Daily Wildcat From left, California Minuteman Project volunteers Jimmy from San Jose, Bobby Gimenez from Huntington Beach and Jason Delaney from Anaheim watch the Mexican border near Naco, Ariz., earlier this month.

Students travel to border as project comes to close

Though Saturday marked the last official day of the Minuteman Project's monthlong campaign to monitor illegal immigrants crossing one section of the Arizona-Mexico border, MMP volunteers are currently strategizing a new expansion plan.

In addition to monitoring the border with Canada, Grey Deacon, spokesman for the MMP, said the group will also begin targeting large employers of undocumented immigrants.

While gaining international media attention in April, MMP volunteers also attracted opposition from several human rights groups, including UA students.

"I think what the Minutemen are doing is really scary because they're people that are driven by fear," said Karen Lutrick, a Mexican American studies graduate student who served as a legal observer four separate times in April. "And I think that when you're so afraid of something that you're willing to drive across country and give up a month of your life, it indicates a dedication to a cause that I was worried would drive people to do something that would harm other people."

Under the Civil Homeland Defense, an organization founded by Chris Simcox more than two years ago in Tombstone, he and Jim Gilchrist, a retired accountant and Vietnam veteran, developed the project for citizens to help monitor illegal crossings and drug trafficking across a 23-mile section of the border between Naco and Douglas.

Inspired by early 17th- and 18th-century American minutemen groups, which helped defend U.S. colonies, Simcox, a former Los Angeles schoolteacher, said he was motivated to monitor the border after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

"The original purpose of Minuteman Project was to bring to the attention of the United States public, the Congress and the president, the need for increased funding for the Border Patrol, the National Park Service and the Forest Service so that they could do the job they're charged with," Deacon said.

EVAN CARAVELLI/Arizona Daily Wildcat UA law graduate student and legal observer Melissa Rodis keeps an eye on a nearby Minuteman post in mid-April at the border with Mexico near Naco.

Having served in the Vietnam War from 1964 to 1968, Deacon said he joined the MMP because he took an oath to defend the U.S. Constitution against all enemies.

Congressman Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., chairman of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus invited Gilchrist and Simcox to Washington, D.C., to share the results of their project.

Now that Gilchrist and Simcox are back in Arizona, they along with other leaders of the MMP are accepting volunteers for upcoming projects, which Deacon said are still being discussed.

"Jim's always been interested in the idea of figuring a way to identify the individual business, the large businesses, who hire and benefit from the hiring of illegal aliens," Deacon said.

In April, more than 860 people from around the United States volunteered for the MMP, Deacon said, most of which came from California.

A total of 63 volunteers remained the entire month of April, while the average volunteer spent about five days, he said.

In addition to concerns of terrorism, the exploitation of child sex slaves and illegal drug trafficking were also concerns of the MMP, Deacon said.

Student involvement

Having served as legal observers with members of the American Civil Liberties Union, some UA students plan to continue monitoring the MMP volunteers once they expand.

"I really just wanted to experience firsthand what it is the Minutemen are feeling and how hard they're willing to go to exhibit how frustrated they are with the immigration system," said second-year law student Jocelyn Cortez, who ventured to the Naco border April 17 as a legal observer.

Cortez's roommate and fellow law student Jessica Turk accompanied her.

Cortez spent the afternoon at the border and said she would return if the MMP expands.

I really just wanted to experience firsthand what it is the Minutemen are feeling and how hard they're willing to go to exhibit how frustrated they are with the immigration system. – Secon -year law student Jocelyn Cortez

"It's going to encourage a lot of negative implications for brown-looking people, if you want to call it that, racial profiling, it's going to be OK to make a citizen's arrest if the person is undocumented," Cortez said. "I think it's going to threaten the freedom of Latin Americans in this country."

Though there was minimal interaction between them, legal observers were occasionally mistaken for MMP volunteers, Lutrick and others said.

"One doesn't know who is the friend and who's the enemy, so that can be a little intimidating," Cortez said.

Puckett said he spent seven months fighting in Vietnam from 1965 to 1966 until a land mine wounded him. Now retired, he said he is still patriotic and has joined the Minuteman Project to protect America.

"Terrorism is the biggest thing I'm here for," he said. "We're losing America from the inside. Defending our country is the way for me."

Puckett and a fellow Vietnam veteran gave Cortez and other legal observers the nickname, "Jane Fondas," which helped him laugh in such a tense situation, Puckett said.

Most legal observers said they never felt like they were in physical danger, despite some of the negative and racist remarks some MMP volunteers made, said Stanford University law student Ray Ybarra.

"Not that I think that they're more humanized, but as you start to look at the picture more, you kind of see that they're a product of really bad immigration policy," Turk said. "Everyone across the political spectrum is dissatisfied with Bush's immigration policy."

EVAN CARAVELLI/Arizona Daily Wildcat Stanford law student and ACLU organizer Ray Ybarra plays a game of horseshoes with some of his volunteers off Border Road in mid-April.

The ACLU's involvement

Though many legal observers are not official members of the ACLU, Ybarra came to the UA March 23 to recruit teams of legal observer volunteers.

"It's important to be out here to let people know that this fear and misunderstandings the vigilantes represent needs to be addressed, and that's the main issue so we need to be organized," Ybarra said.

With a two-year fellowship to monitor the U.S.-Mexico border in Douglas, Ybarra said he would remain to monitor the expansion of the MMP until his fellowship ends.

Of more than 130 volunteers, Ybarra said most legal observers were from Prescott College, Arizona State University and Stanford University. About five students from the UA participated as legal observers.

"It's sad because the UA is so much closer to the border than all these other schools are, and the drive isn't really that far. But the volunteers we have had from the UA have been exceptional," Ybarra said.

Border Patrol relations

Most MMP volunteers waved to legal observers as they drove by on Border Road, Lutrick said. But some Border Patrol agents were not as cordial.

"Maybe two of the agents acknowledged us," she said.

However, Border Patrol relationships between the MMP volunteers were "absolutely wonderful," Deacon said.

"The Border Patrol Union up in Tucson, which represents all the people down here on the line, voted they are 100 percent in favor of and support the Minuteman Project and all its goals," Deacon said.

This is not "exactly" accurate, said Mike Albon, public information officer for the U.S. Border Patrol Local 2544.

"The union appreciated all the support that the Minutemen gave the agents in the field, but the union was not actually supporting the Minuteman Project," Albon said. "They just misinterpreted what was on our Web site. I don't know where the vote would have been taken."

Jose Garza, Border Patrol public information officer, said there was a 13 percent decrease in illegal crossings sectorwide in April, but this is not attributed to the MMP volunteers.

"As our own organization, we do not support or endorse this group's taking the immigration laws into their own hands," Garza said. "We'd rather that they let the job of patrolling our borders be left in the hands of our agents."

Agents apprehended more than 43,900 crossers in April as compared to 50,513 in April 2004.

With approximately 2,400 agents patrolling the Tucson sector, Garza said, having 400 more agents on the ground this year is what the Border Patrol is attributing to the difference.

"We're better equipped than we ever have been in the past," he said. "We've got better technology, more cameras."