Minuteman Project gathers strength
Armando Navarro, center, surrounded by several human rights activists, held a press conference in the town of Agua Prieta, Mexico on Friday afternoon to protest the work of the Minuteman Project.
Don Boomer
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Lifelong Tombstone, Arizona, residents Luis Martinez and his father Ernesto Martinez, 83, came to the gathering of Minuteman Project volunteers out front of Schieffelin Hall to voice anger over the groups effort to post themselves along the US/Mexican border for 30 days.
Don Boomer
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By: EDWARD SIFUENTES - Staff Writer
TOMBSTONE, Ariz. ---- While hundreds of supporters of a controversial border-watch effort gathered Thursday in the historic western town of Tombstone, Ariz., a handful of human-rights activists gathered across the border in Agua Prieta, Mexico, to counter the border-watch group, which calls itself the Minuteman Project.
In Tombstone, more than a hundred volunteers waited on the first day of the monthlong project, which was spearheaded by Californians who said they wanted to shine light on problems with border security. The group's mission, they said, is to observe and report illegal immigrants coming across a 20-mile stretch of the border near the town of Naco, Ariz.
Organizers of the Minuteman Project said they had registered more than 600 volunteers by Friday morning.
Nearly an equal number of reporters were covering the border watch for national and international news organizations.
A number of participants in the border watch and its opposition efforts are from North County and Southwest Riverside County.
Famous for its 1881 gunfight at the OK Corral, Tombstone took on a surreal atmosphere with dozens of colorful volunteers carrying flags, some of them carrying handguns ---- which are legal in the state ---- while actors dressed as cowboys walked the streets of the town.
Minuteman Project volunteers are expected to take their observing posts after training and orientation, organizers said. Human-rights advocates said they plan protests and other activities opposing the border-watch group throughout the month beginning Friday with a rally and vigil.
Jim Gilchrist, a retired Orange County accountant who organized the Minuteman Project, said the number of volunteers who had arrived to participate proved to him that there is widespread support of his effort.
"It's a common thread," he said inside a building where volunteers were being registered 10 people at a time. "They want this issue addressed."
Gilchrist said he wants the federal government to increase resources and boost the number of agents patrolling the border with Mexico.
Immigration authorities said this week that more than 500 additional agents are being sent to Arizona to help stem the flow of illegal immigrants into the country.
Arizona has become the main route for illegal immigrants coming into the country, after the government increased resources at the border and fences were built up along the California-Mexico border in the mid-1990s.
In Agua Prieta, members of the National Alliance for Human Rights, a loose-knit group organized by UC Riverside professor Armando Navarro, held a press conference to announce a rally Saturday to denounce the Minuteman Project.
About 10 people from various immigrant- and human-rights groups, several from San Diego and Riverside counties, attended the press conference to announce their efforts, which include a vigil and legal observers to monitor the Minuteman volunteers for any offenses against the rights of migrants.
"There are legal means to accomplish what they want," said Hector Muro, a Fallbrook Latino-rights activist who traveled to Arizona to oppose the Minuteman Project. "Hunting down the most vulnerable is not the way to go about it."
In the dusty border town near Douglas, Ariz., hundreds of Mexican workers gather to stage their attempts to cross the border illegally each day. But local residents said that the problem is not as widespread as it was four years ago, when the U.S. Border Patrol began to crack down on illegal immigrant traffic through the area.
Commissioner Robert C. Bonner, who heads the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said this week that the agency was sending 534 additional agents and 23 additional aircraft to the Arizona section of the border.
Two hundred of those additional agents have already been deployed, and the rest will be deployed this year.
Local residents said there was a noticeably higher number of Border Patrol vehicles patrolling.
"It's the most I've ever seen," said Bill Davis, 66, a Minuteman volunteer who has lived in the area for 13 years. "You can hardly go a mile without seeing one of them."
Supporters of the Minuteman Project called Bonner's announcement a victory, while human-rights groups said the federal government was bowing to groups they consider vigilantes.
Human-rights activists said they were concerned that many of the participants in the Minuteman Project were civilians, untrained in law enforcement tactics, who could react improperly with their guns.
Many volunteers defended carrying their weapons, saying that it was their right and that their guns were for self-defense only. Most said they had chosen not to carry weapons because their plan was to report immigrants, not confront them.
"I haven't carried a weapon since I learned I could kill a man with my bare hands," Davis said with a grin. "I don't need a gun."
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