Activists target Minutemen

The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, a right-wing U.S. paramilitary group, is bringing its binoculars and armed, border-watching volunteers to the B.C.-Washington border on October 1. Activists and community residents across the country, including groups from Vancouver, are gearing up to counter its message.

The Minuteman project has been steeped in controversy, including claims of racism and vigilantism, since its announcement in October 2004 by Tombstone Tumbleweed newspaper owner and editor Chris Simcox, along with Vietnam War vet James Gilchrist. It formally began on April Fools' Day this year with a 30-day patrol of a 36-kilometre stretch of the Arizona-Mexico border, for which Gilchrist and Simcox claimed to have 1,300 recruits. However, fewer than 150 volunteers came and were outnumbered by a swarm of reporters, camera crews, protesters, and American Civil Liberties Union legal observers.

The Minuteman northern project is scheduled to dispatch patrols to a 32-kilometre stretch of the border, from Blaine to Sumas. Gilchrist has said that critics-including President George W. Bush, who called his group "vigilantes"-are wrong. He told USA Today that his volunteers only bring attention to the social problem of illegal immigration and are "white Martin Luther Kings".

Gilchrist promised that volunteers would be carefully screened, with FBI help, to keep out white supremacists. No one would be allowed to bear guns except those who had permits to carry concealed weapons.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a group tracking hate crimes, an FBI official denied that the agency was screening Gilchrist's members. At least four-fifths of volunteers carry weapons, and almost none were checked for permits. And at one of their first rallies, members of the National Alliance-the largest neo-Nazi group in America-were visible.

For many critics, however, the Minuteman group is just part of a larger, more systemic issue. "The Minutemen represent a disturbing approach to border issues that does not take into account basic human rights," Janet Dench, executive director of the Canadian Council of Refugees, told the Georgia Straight.

Zoe Hammer of the U.S.-based Border Action Network agrees. "The Minutemen are a symptom of border policies that are homicidal," Hammer told the Straight. "The real solution is comprehensive immigration transformation, including civil and workers' rights, and a path to legal residency and citizenship."

The U.S. Border Patrol is the nation's largest law-enforcement agency, with 12,000 agents. According to the religious-based No More Deaths campaign in Arizona, more than 2,000 people have lost their lives since 1998 while attempting to cross the border. The U.S. Bureau of Customs and Border Protection confirmed that last year in Arizona alone, more than 200 people died.

Tom Williams, leader of the Washington Minuteman Detachment, told the Straight, "I don't want terrorists coming in."

Vancouver immigration lawyer Zool Suleman told the Straight that he is more worried about Minutemen coming into this country. Wilson has confirmed that members have visited groups and individuals in Canada. "The Minutemen are an extralegal group, against whom I urge the Canadian government to take a strong line," Suleman said. "The view must be adjusted that armed, white male citizens of America are not themselves a security threat. If they fit a different profile, perhaps the authorities would not be as lax with them."

Canada's security legislation has increasingly come under fire for encouraging racial profiling. According to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, individuals are inadmissible to Canada if they are a danger to the country's security; if they engage in acts of violence that would endanger lives or safety; or if they are members of an organization that engages in such acts.

Dench said that a reasonable interpretation of Canada's inadmissibility regulations could include vigilante groups like the Minutemen.

A Border Action Network report entitled Hate or Heroism recommends that the attorney general investigate whether such groups have violated the USA PATRIOT Act, which holds that committing or threatening violence for the purpose of changing government policy is an act of terrorism. Simcox, for example, has threatened to use violence against immigrants to force the U.S. government to send troops to the Arizona-Mexico border.

Hammer characterized the Minutemen as "a group that sees the world in brown and white".