KOLD News 13 live, local and late breaking-Minuteman Project Organizers Say Effort's Spreading Not Splitting
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Mark Poepsel, KOLD News-13 Reporter
posted 4/18/2005
"This is not a split," said Chris Simcox, one of the organizers of the border-watching Minuteman Project.
Simcox was reassuring reporters after making a statement that fellow organizer, James Cilchrist would be taking the Minuteman Project name and some volunteers to California to protest businesses that employ illegal immigrants.
"We're starting the 2nd phase of the minuteman project early," said Simcox.
"There's no falling out," Gilchrist agreed, although he did say the two men had differences at times "like in high school."
Gilchrist added, "We're not breaking apart. I want to keep the Minuteman project name, but I want him to use it to market the Civil Homeland Defense."
Organizers say they still have hundreds of volunteers watching the border for illegal immigrants, reporting them to Border Patrol agents, and they say they are on pace to see the 1200 member turnout promised at the beginning of the month.
"Our goal all along was to bring this to national attention. We've succeeded in that," said Simcox.
Opponents of the project agree it has gained much media attention, but they say the message has been missed by many media outlets.
"The majority of Arizonans don't feel the way the Minutemen feel, don't give into the war mentality with our neighbors across the border," said Kat Rodriguez with Derechos Humanos, an immigrant rights group.
Hundreds of protestors from California joined a recent unity event on the border.
Rodriguez says the goal of the event was to show Mexicans and Americans can work together as neighbors. The protestors, she said, allude to the fact that if the Minuteman Project spreads, so will opposition.
"We have lots of allies in New Mexico, Texas, California that are already doing counter activities," she said.
Minuteman leaders say their organization is gaining momentum and will spread to more states, including those border states as well as Michigan and Idaho.
Both leaders of the project will work together in Washington D.C. as they appear before the Congressional Caucus on Immigration Reform.
They say they'll use lessons learned from the effort so far.
"We didn't know it would get so big so fast. It almost got away from us," said Gilchrist.
Reports have Minuteman volunteers on videotape talking about other volunteers with shotguns, which are disallowed by project organizers, and some border-watchers, disavowed by the Minuteman Project leaders were pictured detaining immigrants.
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