The Minutemen Border Patrol

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The Minutemen Border Patrol

Photograph

By: David McNew

Date: July 19, 2005

Source: Photo by David McNew/Getty Images.

About the Photographer: Photographer David McNew is a member of the National Press Photographers Association and has won regional as well as national awards for his work. This image is part of the collection maintained by Getty Images.

INTRODUCTION

In 2002, Chris Simcox, an Arizona newspaper publisher, created the Civil Homeland Defense Corps, the precursor to the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, known informally as the Minutemen or the Minutemen Border Patrol. Simcox has stated that the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001—at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and in southwestern Pennsylvania—triggered in him a sense of outrage and a desire to help defend the United States from outside aggressors.

The Minutemen Border Patrol's slogans, "Americans doing the jobs Congress won't do" and "Operating within the law to support enforcement of the law," reflect a dissatisfaction with Congress and law enforcement in the United States regarding illegal immigration and border patrol. According to the Minutemen and Simcox, their group's effort to patrol the U.S. borders with Canada and Mexico is a coordinated, all-volunteer venture to protect the United States from terrorists, and to prevent immigrants from entering the country illegally to take jobs, use government assistance, enroll in schools, and use U.S. healthcare illegally. Simcox and other group members claim not to be anti-immigrant but to be against illegal immigration; the group views President George W. Bush (1946–) and the Republican-controlled Congress as ineffective agents in securing the borders.

In 2003 Simcox was arrested during a patrol of the Arizona-Mexico border; he was found on national park land, carrying a loaded pistol and a police scanner. Simcox has stated his belief that federal border patrol agents are too lax in their work. He has claimed to witness immigrants crossing the border with armed guards while border agents do nothing to prevent the crossing. In 2004 Jim Gilchrist founded the Minuteman Project, an organization similar to Chris Simcox's Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, with an anti-violence, anti-separatist message, promoting monitoring as a method for assisting federal border patrol agents. The two men combined their groups in 2005.

By 2005 the Minutemen Border Patrol was active in border states such as Arizona, Texas, Vermont, New York, and Idaho. On April 1, 2005, the group organized a 900-person effort along a twenty-three-mile stretch of the Arizona-Mexico border; by the end of April, the Minutemen claimed that illegal crossings dropped from more than 800 per day to approximately 13 per day, a 98 percent decrease. Simcox considered the effort a success, proof that his organization was necessary and effective in managing border crossings.

PRIMARY SOURCE

THE MINUTEMEN BORDER PATROL

See primary source image.

SIGNIFICANCE

California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger hailed the Minutemen Border Patrol as a positive force in controlling illegal crossings, stating that "They've done a terrific job. And they have cut down the crossing of illegal immigrants by a huge percentage." President Bush labeled the Minutemen Border Patrol volunteers "vigilantes," a comment that fed a growing divide in the Republican party and among conservatives in the United States. The Minutemen and their followers disagree sharply with President Bush's worker amnesty proposals and guest worker programs.

Unlike other volunteer border patrol groups, such as Ranch Rescue, the Minutemen do not advocate the use of violence in preventing border crossings. Chris Simcox suggests that volunteers use video cameras to document crossings and carry cell phones or two-way radios to communicate with authorities. He advises volunteers to approach persons crossing the border to ask about their citizenship status. This last measure has led to accusations by Minutemen opponents that racism and racial profiling fuel the group's actions. Critics allege that Minutemen have approached persons of color on or near borders, asking them whether they speak English, where they live, and where they work, while not asking such questions of Caucasian people in the same areas.

The Minutemen Border Patrol assert that illegal immigration is responsible for a loss of high-paying American jobs, health care crises in emergency rooms, overcrowded schools in border areas, and other social and economic problems in border states. As of late 2005, the Minutemen Border Patrol claimed to have more than 15,000 volunteers. In April 2006, massive immigration protests involving more than four million protestors across the United States were organized to oppose a Republican plan to crack down on illegal immigration. In May 2006, during the Memorial Day weekend, Minutemen volunteers began to construct a fence along the Arizona-Mexico border on private land, with encouragement from the land's owner. While a December 2005 bill, passed by the U.S. Congress, provided more money for federal border patrol agents and fences, the private effort gained significant attention and criticism from Mexican authorities such as Bishop Renato Ascencio Leon, who called the group's actions "xenophobic."

In May 2006 President Bush ordered 6,000 National Guard troops to work as border patrol substitutes, and he created 3,000 federal border patrol agent jobs. This action reversed his 2004 signing of a budget that eliminated nearly 10,000 border patrol positions. Simcox hailed the addition of border patrol troops and agents but stated that 30,000—not 6,000—troops were needed to adequately patrol the borders with Mexico and Canada and to prevent illegal immigrants from coming into the United States.