[ACLU-NM] ACLU Legal Observer Update

[Kimberly Lavender]

ACLU Legal Observer Update -  written by Claudia Guevara
 
This weekend, 28 legal observers stood up for human rights as the Minutemen arrived in El Paso and New Mexico.  Volunteers included local college students, teachers, civil rights attorneys, former military personnel, painters, realtors, and college professors, and other professions. 
Here's a brief update of what we saw:

New Mexico

The New Mexico group was found south of Hachita, New Mexico.  Hachita is a very small community off of Highway 9 in South Central New Mexico.  The Minutemen's 'headquarters' is at the Hachita Community Center and they are camping on private land south of Hachita at milemarker 29 off of Highway 81.  We counted 27 Minutepeople, the majority armed and from out-of-state.  They lounged around all day and about an hour before sunset they caravanned to a spot just up the highway and set-up patrols about 200 yards apart from each other.  There was no activity throughout the night and they chose a different spot on Sunday night and had 22 people.  

There was little interaction with the Minutemen other then them occasionally yelling something about us smoking pot (which nobody was) and identifying us as the enemy.  For those of you who legal observed in April you might remember 'Papa Bear' and 'Chrome Dome,' who appeared to be the leaders.  See the article below for Papa Bear's antics.  

The New Mexico Minutemen are led by Bob Wright, who we hear is the former commander of the Eastern New Mexico Militia and is recruiting strongly from Alabama where he has ties to other militia groups.  While there numbers appear to be much smaller then in Arizona they claim they will have a 'strong' presence throughout the month and claim they will be moving around to try to throw us off.

Because they appear to only be patrolling at night, legal observing will be done from the late afternoon until sunrise.  We have secured places to sleep during the day, please contact us 2 days in advance so we may notify locals that their generosity will be needed.  Hachita is located 200 miles from Tucson, 155 miles from El Paso, and 145 miles from Douglas.  

TEXAS

The group of Legal observers who went out in El Paso spent most of the time searching for the Minutemen.  We divided up into four groups and covered the area between Ft. Hancock and Socorro.  They weren't easy to find because they were on private property but we finally found them.  Their headquarters are on the Miller Bros. property in Ft. Hancock but they go hunting for migrants in the Pecan Groves on the Ivy farm (20500 Alameda) which is tucked behind the Hideaway Lakes camping area in Tornillo.  

Last night we had a confrontation with the MM after we followed them from the Miller property over to the Hideaway Lakes.  We identified ourselves as legal observers and were very polite but they did not respond.  There was no trouble, but the Sheriff was called out to assist the MM.  We sat near five big trucks as they shined their spotlights on us for about 20 minutes.  Finally Mr. Ivy arrived and let us know we were on his property.  Our intention was not to enter his property but we honestly didn't see any "Private Property" signs.  We identified ourselves as legal observers and took the opportunity to ask for permission to observer the MM on his land.  He said he didn't want us on his property because he was afraid we would do something to agitate the MM and cause them to act irrationally.  We left the property and then got pulled over by a Sheriff Deputy.  They asked what we were doing and we gave them all the information. One of the legal observers was videotaping the interactions with the deputy and was ordered to stop recording.  The legal observer asked for a legal basis but the deputy failed to give him one stating simply that he did not "want to go into it."  

The Legal Observers who came out this weekend did an outstanding job.  Despite the terrible reporting by the El Paso Times, our presence was definitely noticed by the Minutemen and they know we're around watching from a distance. 

There also appears to be strong collaboration between the El Paso Sheriff's Department and the Minutemen (see article below).  They claim they chose this area because they were welcomed by the Sheriff and reportedly called the Sheriff's Department on Saturday night to let them know
we were in the area and made some ridiculous claims.  The leader of the Texas Minutemen even brought arsenic with him because he thought legal observers were going to poison his water.

To Sign-up for dates please send an email to cguevara at aclutx.org or call 915-532-0921.

We hope to see you down here sometime during the month of October.  If you can not make it we are also working on a few other ways that you can get involved.  Please be on the lookout for future emails.  



'We're the good guys': Minuteman Corps stages first New Mexico operation 
(30 comments; last comment posted Today 11:31 am) print | email this story 

By Barbara Ferry The New Mexican | 
October 3, 2005 
Editor's note: New Mexican reporter Barbara Ferry and photographer Luis Sánchez
Saturno are in Southwestern New Mexico covering the Minuteman Civil Defense Corp's watch for illegal immigrants along the Mexico border. 

BETWEEN HACHITA AND ANTELOPE WELLS, N.M. - As darkness approached Saturday, the first night of the Minutemen's patrol in New Mexico, Robert "Doc" Kohlbecker, a camouflage hat perched on his head and a pipe clenched between his teeth, sat under an Army green tarp and reviewed his troops. 

"Who has night-vision equipment?" he asked the group of 27 men and two women, some seated in folding chairs, some crouched in the desert around him. "Anybody got the good stuff?" 

Kohlbecker, who goes by the radio handle Papa Bear, said he is a Vietnam War veteran and worked as a defense contractor in Afghanistan. Most recently he has joined activists from around the country to fight on another battlefront - the U.S.-Mexico border. 

The U.S. government has failed miserably to keep illegal immigrants out of the country, members of the Minutemen Civil Defense Corps say, forcing them to take matters into their own hands. 

The Corps, led by Tombstone, Ariz.< SPAN style='FONT-SIZE: 9pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'>, publisher Chris Simcox, led their first border blockade in April in Arizona, setting up observation posts and calling in sightings of immigrants to the Border Patrol. 

Riding on the success of that campaign - the Corps takes credit for 350 apprehensions - and the international media attention it garnered, the group announced an expanded patrol operation for the month of October in all four Southwestern border states as well as those on the northern frontier. 

In New Mexico, the Corps has chosen the instep of the state's boot heel. Volunteers, who come from as far as Virginia and New York, are camping on land owned by Robert Been, who has joined a small group of "roughriders" who patrol the area on horseback. 

The Corps' base of operations is a cavernous, fly-infested community center up N.M. 81 in Hachita, where the three local businesses - a gas station, a cafe and a liquor store - have closed. 

Minuteman Richard Humphries pulled up to the Hachita community center in his Jeep. 

Humphries, 70, another veteran of the Arizona operation, lives near the border in Elfrida, Ariz.< SPAN style='FONT-SIZE: 9pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'> He said immigration is not just a local problem. "The problem is the number of illegals," Humphries said. "The United States is getting too diverse," he said. "It's losing its core culture." 

Humphries said he owns a house in Chihuahua, Mexico, speaks Spanish and has "hundreds of Mexican friends." 

But, he said, "When I come back to the United States, I don't want to feel like
I'm in Mexico." 

Humphries carried a Colt .45 "like an insurance policy," but he didn't expect to have to use it. He was frank about the real reason for the border campaign. 

"The purpose of the Minutemen is publicity," Humphries said. 

Getting their message out to the media, which the Minutemen view as hopelessly liberal, will help force Washington and President Bush to shape up, he added. 

Back at base camp, Kohlbecker went over standard operating procedure: All sightings to be reported on walkietalkies to him, Papa Bear. Papa Bear would call the base in Hachita, where a volunteer would call the Border Patrol in Lordsburg, about 68 miles away. 

Leave guns in their holsters, Kohlbecker said. And take turns napping. 

"Once it gets dark, it's going to be like buck fever," Kohlbecker told the
volunteers. "You're going to start seeing things and hearing things." 

Don't let the legal observers from the American Civil Liberties Union, a small group of whom had gathered at Been's gate, provoke you, he advised. 

"Remember, we're the good guys," Kohlbecker said. "Let them be the bad
guys." 

The caravan headed out onto a quiet stretch of N.M. 81, parking along the shoulder of the road. Mexico was about 15 miles to the east and 29 miles to the south. 

Ray Thompson, 69, a resident of nearby Columbus, sat in a lawn chair in the back of his pickup. Thompson had the "good stuff," night-vision equipment used by the military in Iraq, complete with instructions to destroy it in the event of being taken prisoner. 

Thompson bought the equipment for $2,500, "the price of a moderately disputed divorce," he joked. As the sky darkened, the desert, viewed through the scope, glowed an eerie green. Thompson, who has lived in Columbus for about three years, said he often finds illegal immigrants on his property. He said he gives them water and calls the Border Patrol. 

"I would never deny water to anyone in the desert," he said. 

To fix the problem, Thompson said he'd like to see the military conduct training exercises on the border. "It would be like looking for the enemy in Iraq," he said. 

In the meantime, he waited in the quiet night with his fellow Minutemen. "I figure most of us are retired or semiretired," he said. "This is probably an exercise in futility."


Kohlbecker and Bob Wright, a gas-plant employee from Eunice , N.M., who is coordinating the New Mexico effort, went to check out the drainage pipes that run underneath the highway. Inside one of the pipes, Kohlbecker found a duffle bag and three plastic water bottles. The men figured the pipe was a meeting spot for migrants. Kohlbecker used his hunting knife to slash the bottles and drain the water. 

Across the highway, Don Wooley, a retired pawnbroker from Lawton, Okla., said the United States has become overpopulated. "We don't need any more bodies of any color," he said. "We can't take on the world's poor. What it says on the Statue of Liberty no longer applies." 

The night passed uneventfully , Wooley said Sunday. Based on intelligence gathered from daytime patrols, the Minutemen planned to move their Sunday night patrol to a different location . 

Gary Cole, the New Mexico operation's communication coordinator, said he wasn't
disappointed by the New Mexico patrol's turnout. New Mexico is rural, isolated and has a small population. Gas prices and the effects of two hurricanes are keeping people from traveling. 

"We're suffering the same plight as tourist towns," he said. "But if we can
put 2,000 people on this border, that's really amazing." 

New Mexican photographer Luis Sánchez Saturno contributed to this report. 

Contact Barbara Ferry at 995-3817 or bferry at sfnewmexican . 

Saturday, October 1, 2005 

Minutemen patrols start today

Loui e Gilot
El Paso Times

The Texas Minutemen begin to patrol a 25-mile stretch between Fabens and Fort Hancock today, a spot group members chose from other locations on the border, in part, because of the welcome they received from Sheriff Leo Samaniego.

"Nowhere have I seen the kind of willingness and welcome we have seen in El Paso County," said
Frank George, the spokesman for the group and a veteran Minutemen patroller.

"Usually law enforcement runs away. They don't want to have anything to do with the Minutemen.
There's political fallout. They can be called racists if they support us. But Sheriff Samaniego was extremely supportive."

The patrollers, most of whom carry weapons for protection, plan to be in the area throughout
October. They sit on public land, and on private land wherever they obtain permission from
landowners, and scan the border for undocumented immigrants to report to the Border Patrol.

Samaniego, who met with the group in August, explained his position.

"We're neutral. I can't keep them out of the border. It's between them and the farmers," he said.

Ray Ybarra, an organizer with the American Civil Liberties Union, said being neutral is not enough.

"By not speaking out against hatred, you invite it into your community," he said.

The ACLU will have about 20 observers following Minutemen patrollers today in El Paso and New
Mexico.

Volunteers involved with the Minutemen groups said they are not motivated by hatred, but want to
show that securing the border would be possible if the government provided more resources.

Split border

After the original Minuteman Project in Arizona in April, which unfolded without major incidents, the group splintered because of personality clashes and other differences.

Now about 20 to 25 groups operate from California to Texas, sharing the border.

In Texas, the Texas Minutemen cover the Fabens area, and a chapter of the Arizona-based Minuteman Civil Defense Corps will target Falfurrias, a southeast Texas town.

In New Mexico, another chapter of that group will focus on Hatchita, and a local group called the New Mexico Border Watch will patrol from Sunland Park to Columbus.

Meet the Minutemen

The leaders of the groups tend to be middle-aged men with a fondness for guns, but with little else in common.

George, the Texas Minutemen spokesman, is an electronics contractor in California and a Cuban
immigrant.

"Th e bigger picture for me is that I was in the U.S. when Cuba was lost to communism, and I believe this country is likewise being lost" to illegal immigration, he explained.

The group's man on the ground, Shannon McGauley, is a private investigator in Dallas.

Al Garza, in charge of the Falfurrias operation, is a private investigator in Arizona and a Vietnam War veteran. To those who are surprised by the fact that he is Mexican-American, he says, "Because my last name is Garza, I should fly a Mexican flag?"

Then there is Clifford Alford, who has been patrolling the Southern New Mexico desert regularly for months with the group he created, New Mexico Border Watch. Alford is a former soldier, a current insurance investigator and an ACLU member. He doesn't like to be called a Minuteman.

"I flat-out hate the Minutemen organizations. They come here for October and they go home. They
don't accomplish anything. What has helped and gotten the government's attention is a continuous
presence," he said.

How many

Exactly how many patrollers will be on the ground this month is unknown.

The biggest group, the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, has signed up 4,000 members for patrols on
the southern and northern borders, fewer than their reported goal of 10,000.

The Texas Minutemen signed up 500 people to patrol the Fabens area, and organizers estimated that at least half would show up. But more than 100 volunteers canceled because of the hurricanes, and the remaining patrollers have not all signed up for the entire month. Some are in for only a weekend.

Alford, whose group had 150 members at one time, said there were never more than 16 patrollers on the ground at any time.

In Fabens, the patrollers said they have studied excerpts of the Texas Penal Code photocopied for them by Sheriff Samaniego and were ready to start working. The copied articles pertain to weapons possession and arbitrary detention.

Louie Gilot may be reached at lgilot at elpasotimes.com, 546-6131.



Ray Ybarra
Ira Glasser Racial Justice Fellow
American Civil Liberties Union of Texas










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