|
Fuego
Fall 2005
TRAIL OF FEARS
In the Trenches with the Minuteman Project
By Andrew Vontz
Thanks to record spring rainfall, the high desert along the United States-Mexico border in Campo, California glows an atypical green late in the afternoon on a summer day. A maze of dusty dirt roads that wind in and out of patches of scrub leads to a 4x4 path along a ten-foot-high rust colored fence that delineates the border. To millions of illegal immigrants, a quick vault over this fence is the gateway to better life in America.
Godzilla doesn’t like that one bit and as a cool evening breeze stirs the scrub, he stomps along the border carrying a load of militia men clad in camo ready to do battle. Godzilla is a ’76 Chevy Suburban painted in a militaristic camouflage pattern that serves as the lead vehicle for the Minuteman Project, a group of cazamigrantes. According to the group’s web site, “The Minuteman Project is a grassroots effort to bring Americans to the defense of their homeland, similar to the way the original Minutemen from Massachusetts did in the late 1700s.”
During three weeks in July and August, more than a hundred American citizens from California, Arizona, Florida, and Georgia reported for duty at the VFW hall in Campo to patrol the border for the Minuteman Project. “I’m here because of the terrorist situation,” says Jeff Schwilk, a retired Marine from Oceanside, California expressing one of the group’s commonly held beliefs. “Some people might have heard that terrorists have come across the border or think that it might have happened. I’m here to tell you it’s already happened. Al Qaeda members have been caught right here in Campo. I’d rather not say who told me but it’s a very reliable source.”
Godzilla arrives at checkpoint Maria, a shade structure the real Border Patrol uses, where half a dozen Minutemen have set up an encampment. Like Schwilk, many of the Minutemen are ex-military. Some carry sidearms that dangle ominously against dusty camo pants. The fence doesn’t run the entire length of the border and there’s a big gap directly in front of checkpoint Maria where a man in his 50’s with a brush white mustache and full desert fatigues stands pointing a high-sensitivity microphone across the border. Another Minuteman peers through a high-power scope at a house atop a plateau across the border where he claims he’s been observing drug trafficking for the past week.
“We have a problem in Georgia with illegals coming in and creating problems for us. There’s the crime factor and I have friends that can’t get jobs because they can’t compete with illegals. I’d pay more for something to have it made by Americans—American made, like in the 80’s,” says Mike Bird, a tall, trim man in fatigues and combat boots who trekked all the way from Georgia to participate. Earlier in the week, Bird was patrolling in Godzilla with another Minuteman when the pair claims they interrupted a drug deal across the border. The people on the other side of the border drew guns and opened fire leaving a bullet hole in Godzilla’s exoskeleton but leaving the Minutemen unscathed. Illegals typically make their final charge for America under the cover of darkness when it is cooler and harder to be spotted. The Minutemen deploy a high-tech arsenal of surveillance equipment and powerful spotlights to deter them. The law forbids the Minutemen from shooting illegals across the border even if they are shot at first. When the Minutemen spot illegals they alert the Border Patrol and the illegals are detained if they don’t escape. This is one of the hottest spots for illegal border crossings in the country and the Border Patrol has a post near the Minutemen’s VFW HQ. A convoy of vehicles leaves the VFW every night to take up stations along the border and wait for illegals to attempt to cross over.
All is quiet at Checkpoint Maria for now so four Minutemen pile into Godzilla to head to another hot spot forty miles away near Tecate, Mexico. As Bigfoot slowly rumbles off, Big Bird keeps a watchful eye on the fence and nods when he spots a Border Patrol 4x4 driving towards the border. The Border Patrol polices the area in off road vehicles and by helicopter, but the Minutemen say it’s not enough. “Our border is being invaded from Mexico,” says a man in his early 60’s who won’t give his name but identifies himself as a nontribal native American. “In this age of post-9/11, this border should be tight as a drum. Instead it’s loose as a goose. Securing our nation’s borders is much more important than watching Oprah or seeing how the Chargers or Rams are doing.”
The original minutemen got their name because they were supposed to be prepared to drop everything, pick up a musket, and deploy guerilla war tactics to tear apart Red Coated invaders in under a minute. While the Minuteman Project’s name invokes the patriotic bent of the revolutionary war, the rhetoric and posturing of the group calls to mind a more recent historical antecedent. The militia movement of the mid-90’s was fueled by paranoia, an intense hatred of the federal government, and a deep-seated suspicion that the United Nations would one day force the United States to become part of a world government often referred to as the ‘New World Order.’ The militia movement cooled off substantially when militiaman Timothy McVeigh blew up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal building in Oklahoma City killing 168 people.
The paranoia of the anti-world government militiamen of a decade ago still lingers in today’s Minuteman movement. “They’ve found piles of Korans out in the desert that Al Qaeda operatives have ditched before crossing the border here,” said one man in fatigues who didn’t want his name used. It seems a little far-fetched that devout Muslims would toss out the most holy object in their religion like a piece of trash, but all evening long the Minutemen invoke this rumor as if it were an indisputable truth that God etched on tablets and handed down to their leader, Jim Gilchrist. In spite of its paramilitary trappings and seemingly xenophobic bent, the Minuteman Project requires that all volunteers sign a pledge stating that they are not racist or affiliated with any racist groups before they are allowed to join the Project.
Not everyone has Minuteman fever. Protesters from the Angels of the Desert organization and other groups have set up camp just down the road from Checkpoint Maria. “3,200 people have died on the border since 1994. Anything you do here will cause more deaths,” says Vincente Del Rias who was born not far from where he sits in a lawn chair keeping an eye on the fence. “Who knows if Al Qaeda is coming across the border? Why would someone who is coming over here to do something wrong try to cross the border illegally here when they can practically walk cross from Canada?”
The crew in Godzilla has no doubt that they’re helping to turn back terrorists and keep America free. When the truck stops at the top of a hill beneath a spotlight pointed across the border into Tecate, Mexico a quarter mile from an official border crossing, a clean-shaven young man with ramrod straight posture marches up to the vehicle. Covered from bucket hat to ankles in mismatched pieces of camouflage clothing, he looks ready to go to war. “The drug cartels have been jamming our radios with Hispanic language and music all night. We just had a lookout for the narcs drive up here on a 3-wheeler and scope us out. One of these is worth $25,000,” he says tapping a laminated Minuteman Project card that hangs on a lanyard around his neck. Without any verifiable proof, the group insists that Mexican drug smugglers have put a $25,000 bounty on the group. Or maybe it’s a $25,000 bounty per individual. No one seems quite sure what the details of the bounty are, but they’re positive that it exists. Just like they’re positive that their radios have been jammed when it seems obvious that consumer grade walkie-talkies are likely to pick up Spanish-language conversations and radio when they’re used in close proximity to a Mexican city.
The alleged cartel lookout’s 3-wheeler can be heard zooming up the road when the young man, who refuses to give his name, turns to a reporter. “I’d like to just drive down to Home Depot with a bus and tell everyone who wants a job to hop on. Then I’d drive across the border and drop them off and say, good luck finding a job. Have you ever heard of private capitol management?” The reporter says he hasn’t. “I own my own business and in two to five years I will be worth more than five million dollars. People can go down to Costco and buy a flatscreen TV for $5,000 or they can buy it directly from me at a big discount. By eliminating the middleman, the consumer can save a bundle. Can I get your number?” The reporter appears to be trapped on the business end of an Amway hard sell with no escape in sight when the 3-wheeler buzzes up the road directly beneath the hill. The young man sprints for his car and pulls out a shotgun. “If they start shooting just hit the deck and don’t move.”
He pumps the gun and waits but nothing happens.
|
