Minutemen Corps of California meet in October for 47th border watch
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
By Carl Braun
Examiner.com
Minuteman watches from remote outpost over border
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The Minuteman Corps of CA (MCCI) will begin it’s border watch this Friday October 2nd , 2009 at Camp Vigilance in Boulevard . This marks the 8th month-long “muster” they have held and 47th monthly border watch overall. The group first appeared on the scene in October of 2005 as the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps (MCDC) under then national leader Chris Simcox. They have since branched off into their own organization as the national group ran into political and financial difficulties.The Minuteman Corps of CA has amassed a record of nearly 1 million man-hours of volunteer border watch duty with no major injuries or incidents to anyone on either side of the fence. In fact they have provided humanitarian aid to dozens of individuals lost in the high desert, all of whom were illegally in the United States. Originally starting as a political protest to draw attention to the wide-open southern border with Mexico, the group would position themselves in lawn chairs and trucks along the often un-fenced border to act as a deterrent to those who wanted to cross. As the years went on they further developed a Search & Rescue team of certified professional rescuers and began to man remote outposts acting as the citizen eyes and ears of the undermanned and underfunded Border Patrol.
Today MCCI operates out of Camp Vigilance in Boulevard and for four years has put patrols in the field watching over the border and the property of local residents. They fashion themselves as more of a neighborhood watch and laugh at the suggestion that they are vigilantes.
“If we are vigilantes we are the sorriest bunch to ever carry that moniker.” said Rick R one of the groups leaders. “We’ve never hurt a soul out here. Just observe and report. That’s what we do, “ he added. All members must go through a felony background check and interview a well as training and firearms review before being permitted in the field. Most carry a sidearm in accordance with California law for self -defense.
Detractors call them racists yet on further examination you’d likely find many are married to people of color or come from mixed race families themselves. The American Civil Liberties Union ACLU and other groups watched the Minutemen of CA closely at first but after a few weeks left and never came back. This group just wasn’t much fun apparently. No racist banners, confederate flags or shaved and tattooed heads. Just ordinary folks concerned about the lawlessness of an open border with Mexico.
The attention they have brought to this issue of open borders is their greatest success. In 2005, illegal immigration would have ranked near fifty on a list of top fifty issues concerning Americans. Today it is in the top five and the third rail of American politics.
The group has largely eschewed the national spotlight preferring instead to do the grunt work in the field and act as a volunteer force multiplier for the US Border Patrol. While not officially sanctioning their efforts, BP is quietly grateful for the extra support and for the attention groups like MCCI have brought to the border issue. Since the Minutemen first showed up, the Border Patrol has doubled in size and hundreds of miles of new fence has been added along with better equipment and bigger budgets. If their goal as stated was to bring attention to the issue and have a more secure border in the process, this political protest must go down as one of the most successful in US History. Still, BP only has about 10% of the 8,000 plus miles of US border "under effective control" meaning there is much work to be done and no rest for the Minutemen anytime soon. Many of the men and women in this group are former military or retired police officers and based on their unblemished record have handled themselves well in this treacherous environment.
The murder of Border Agent Robert Rosas in July underscores just how dangerous this neighborhood is today. While government patrols were beefed up immediately after the incident, things are largely back to normal and autumn traffic of people and drugs in the area, backed up for months, is expected to be heavy.
Note: The author was the leader of the Minuteman Corps of CA from 2006 to 2008 and detailed their efforts in a book entitled: Above All Else—The Minuteman Struggle To Secure America’s Borders. He is a guest lecturer at the Center for Homeland Defense and Security at the Naval Post Graduate School.
Carl Braun is an analyst for the Homeland Security Policy Institute Group and he's logged 5,000-plus hours on the border. He has written several books including his most recent on Border Insecurity, “Above All Else”
. Contact Carl at Carl.Braun@BPAUX.org.
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