Profile of a Minuteman: Preston of Oklahoma

As the stub of his cigar burned steadily, the thick white smoke that wafted my way delved me into the comfortable old memories of an America as Preston had known it. This is a nostalgia for a place where he said he remembered people had had values and morals, and a dedication to serve in order to keep their country safe– a quality he feels has been lost over the years.

“Most of our members just love America,” he said. “They’re not doing this because of personal reasons, but just because they remember what America used to be like. It was a different place then, and the values got lost in the shuffle. Now it’s just out of control.”

A retired parol officer and a Vietnam veteran with degrees in Criminal Justice and Ethics , Preston is the state director of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corp. in Oklahoma who traveled to King’s Anvil Ranch for the September muster. With an air of grand-fatherly wisdom, albeit arrogance, Preston explained that he felt first compelled to join the group when he began noticing the government had failed in “taking a stand on our southern borders.”

Since then, he said witnessing the mistreatment of the illegal immigrants by their coyotes has only encourages his opinion that the group is taking the right actions on the border.

“It’s so sad that these people are being victimized and in many cases, turned into slaves,” he said. “What upsets me, is that more people need to wake up and get involved to end some of this chaos.”

Election Day: Minutemen appear to be going for McCain

Election day has finally come around, and just like most Americans, some Minutemen Civil Defense Corp. volunteers have been making their opinions known throughout cyberspace. According to one of the official MCDC forum pages, as well as another, the group seems to be going red.

Although MCDC President Chris Simcox adamantly made a point in our Sept. 29 interview that he was not personally supporting either of the candidates, (because he said neither put enough focus on the platform of illegal immigration), the rest of his organization seem to be demoralizing Barack Obama online as much as they can.

(Side note: Simcox later  stated on his Web site that he endorsed Republican candidate John McCain because of his “tough stance on border security” in early September through a press release. This is ironic because as I wrote above, he told me just the opposite. So where does he really stand? Is he just endorsing one candidate to please his organization’s volunteers?)

One of the bloggers on the Minuteman forum even went so far as to say,

“If we have ever prayed in our lives, we need to pray so hard now for Obama to be defeated. Not necessarily for a McCain win, just for an Obama defeat. The terrorist Obama is a major disaster waiting to happen, I don’t believe this country could survive him. We can fight against McCain to a certain extent, but not to cries of racism if we are against Obama. Plus he has tactics to silence us we don’t even want to think about, and all the radical left behind him.”

This blogger also commented on the long lines of African-American voters who have been making up many of the voting lines in Atlanta, Ga.– as if seeing a demographic like that there is surprising!

If you live in Atlanta, you should already know that a large population of the city is African American! The problem, is that comments like this only perpetuate the characterization of the group as bigots– a label they have been so desperately trying to break free of since the start.

I agree it’s unfair for one or two comments by individuals to be used as a generalization for the whole group, but unfortunately it can’t just be ignored.

Minutemen as Humanitarians?

MCDC member Peter Leeds isn’t what you think of when you think “Minuteman”. In fact, it was only after reporting on the September muster that I found out that to be a Minuteman, you can be more than just a guy in a lawnchair with binoculars. Leeds is one of these select few.

Leeds is currently the head of the Minuteman Search and Rescue group in Arizona– a section of the group that only takes only “the cream of the crop” members, he says.

To me, SAR does some of the most interesting work in the organization , especially considering the heartless,  immigrant-hater image other outside groups have tried to reinforce about the Minutemen.

As Leeds explained, being a member of the search and rescue team takes a lot of training and time. Many hours  of special training similar to military boot camp training where members must demonstrate strength and endurance, as well as become certified by the American Red Cross are required before members are admitted.

Search and Rescue members can spend from 8 to 10 hour shifts searching the desert for illegal immigrants who need medical attention, and up to 60 hours in a weekend collectively.

On a typical night with Search and Rescue, Leeds said there are three missions that must be completed. First, SAR members are there to support the “line,” or people staked in their lawn chairs at posts. The second mission is to seek out illegal immigrants that may need help or water, and the third is the tactical mission– or to “cover the flanks” of the border patrol and areas they may have missed.

Above is a video I found on YouTube.com that was taken on one of these night missions. It shows how members of SAR treat the sores on the man’s feet and legs, and then provide him with Advil and water while he waits for the border patrol.

The Reluctant Reverend

When I recently spoke with the Rev. Robin Hoover, president of the humanitarian group Humane Borders, and pastor of the First Christian Church in Tucson, Ariz., he was definitely nice– there’s really no denying that.

I guess I’ve just got to stop assuming that people will match what I think they will be, or act like. For instance with Hoover, I pictured what many heads of churches are like–charismatic, inviting, warm, and for the most part, talkative.

Hoover was just the opposite.

With a down to business nature that seemed more curt than quaint, Hoover, who has a Ph.D in political science and has written a paper on vigilantism, was more than disinterested in talking about “vigilantes” such as the Minutemen.

I found this really interesting, especially since in the past he has been grouped with Isabel Garcia and Jennifer Allen’s groups that so strongly oppose the border. Instead, it seemed that the reverend’s approach was that, if he simply refused to talk much about the Minutemen and the other vigilante groups, they would eventually go away.

I’ve got to hand it to him, practices like putting the bad child  in a corner and ignoring them often worked in kindergarten, so maybe this new approach will eventually have some effects too?

Click here to hear more on what Hoover thinks about other border issues.

The Leader of the Other Pack

Have you ever felt like you’ve heard it all before? Like you have been stuck in a room with a movie running on repeat for weeks on end? That’s how I’ve been feeling lately.

Working on my first in-depth project, I think I really understand now how authors can get sucked into their stories– where they begin to breathe, eat and sleep whatever they’re writing about. Before this I never thought that old men dressed in camo and lounging in lawn chairs would become literally the stuff of my dreams, believe me.

I guess that’s why I am so excited for tomorrow’s interview with Isabel Garcia, a Pima County attorney who works with the Coalicion de Derechos Humanos, ( The Human Rights Coalition), and is probably one of the most outspoken opponents to the MCDC movement. This interview will certainly provide me with a new twist to my story, especially since she seems like a colorful character to interview. Well, maybe not colorful in the quirky or funny way, but in her relentless passion against anything that she feels is harming, stereotyping or subjecting immigrants to unfair treatment.

Even while I haven’t interviewed Garcia yet, I can already tell from what I have read and seen that she is just as strong a proponent of her cause as Simcox is of closing the borders– and also as controversial. Here in Arizona, Garcia has not only been outspoken about the problems the Minutemen Civil Defense Corps. is causing, but also Sheriff Joe Arpaio. In one of the most recent incidents, she led a protest outside a bookstore in Tucson where people hit a pinata resembling the Sheriff.

Garcia is shown here holding the pinata head of the Sheriff– only resulting in added controversies to those that were already swirling about her.

I know she calls Simcox crazy, but is there any way these two could really be two sides to the same coin? This should be fun…

Terms Related to the Minutemen Civil Defense Corps. You May Want to Know

After talking to my adviser for this project, it was brought to my attention that many people are completely unaware of the meaning behind some of the terms used regularly in describing the  Minutemen Civil Defense Corps. Like anything, it’s often the easiest to understand something when you know the history and structure behind something. So here it is — a complete breakdown of what I’ve learned about MCDC in the short three or so months I have been reading and interviewing the group:

The Minutemen Civil Defense Corps. is a non-profit, anti-illegal immigration group dedicated to securing U.S. borders. The group was started by former California elementary school teacher Chris Simcox after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 in April of 2005, and is still the current leader. In an effort to secure the borders, thousands of Americans have joined the ranks of MCDC with their lawn chairs and binoculars to be what they have called ‘the eyes and ears’ of the nation.

Although the group carries weapons when they watch the border during “muster” weekends, all of the group’s officials have been clear to explain that it is only for the safety of their members and are never actually used unless in fear for their life. So far, I have not found any incidents of MCDC members abusing this priveledge.

During one of these watches, if a volunteer sees an illegal immigrant they are instructed not to talk with the person, but to provide water and food if needed and then call the border patrol. Although the group has been labeled by many as “racists” and “vigilantes,” they maintain that their mission is not about hating immigrants, but highlighting the federal government’s insufficient protection of the borders and the problems illegal immigration has caused within the U.S.

Terms:

Muster - the weekend or sometimes weekly border watches that are held on private owner’s ranches that back up to the Mexican border.

SOP- this stands for ‘Standard Operating Procedures,’ which must be followed by all MCDC volunteers during a muster. Below is a link:

http://www.minutemanhq.com/hq/sop.php

SARS - this stands for Search and Rescue; a part of the group dedicated to searching for illegal immigrants who may be in need of desperate help in the desert.

Minuteman Project- an organization started by Jim Gilchrist to monitor the flow of illegal immigrants across the southern border and bring light to the issue in the federal and state governments. Gilchrist was at one time associated with Simcox’s organization, but split in 2005 to form his own group after tensions among the leaders.

Sector - this is a pre-determined area, usually two to three miles long that a pair of volunteers will monitor during a shift within a muster. Sectors are generally  along a road, sometimes called “the line.”

Station - this is a home base or post that a pair of volunteers will stay at during a shift.

Chain of Command is as follows: Chapter Leader, Operations Officer, Media Coordinator, Communications, Sector Chiefs,  Shift Leaders, Volunteers.

I Expected an Alien Encounter, Instead I Met Volunteers of MCDC

While a lot of slogans are just cheesy, it’s times like last weekend that Nike’s “Just do it” seems like it was written for me. In reality, as a reporter you can read and prepare on a topic as much as you want, but throwing yourself into an uncomfortable situation is sometimes the only way to really learn.

If you’ve read articles about the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps., you probably already know that terms like “racist” and “vigilante” have haunted the group like the plague. So when my photographer Deeana and I drove 30 miles south of Tucson this past weekend to participate in the group’s scouting weekend, or what they call a muster, I was naturally expecting to meet people who fit that description.

As a reporter,  it’s sometimes hard not to be opinionated and biased. However, I knew the members of this group were judging me just like I had them, which made me try to fight that urge harder. More than anything, I was curious about the activities that happened at a muster– especially since I’d felt like I would have to promise my first-born child to obtain clearance to attend one.

Would there be secret handshakes and rituals? A shoot-off? An illegal immigrant sacrifice? I was prepared for the worst.

The drive south to Amado, Ariz. went by fast and before I knew it we were already creeping along the dusty gravel road through the Oswald Cattle Company property. Already noon, several trucks were already parked at the camp with a shade structure that housed a table with walkie-talkies, scouting equipment, and about five lawn-chair clad retirees. I was amazed that the scene was smaller and less intimidating than I had thought!

For the next four hours, I spent time talking to almost all the 15 to 20 volunteers who trickled in. The majority were older men with a a couple of women interspersed,  but I didn’t find the racist monsters I had read about in articles. Instead here was grandma and grandpa, dressed out in camo and boots with handgun holstered to their side,  who could boast four college degrees and a love for an America they say they can still remember. At least those were the people I met.