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Patrol meets peaceful resistance

01:06 AM PST on Sunday, April 3, 2005

By SHARON McNARY and CHRIS RICHARD / The Press-Enterprise

The Minuteman Project staged demonstrations Saturday morning at two Border Patrol stations near the United States-Mexico border in Arizona and its members were met by counter-demonstrators in a peaceful, and occasionally even friendly, confrontation.

Still, critics of the volunteer border watchers continued to worry the situation could turn ugly today and early this week as the Minuteman volunteers, many of whom are armed, take up surveillance positions along transit routes for undocumented border crossers on approximately 22 miles of frontier between Douglas and Naco, Ariz.

"The problem is, it's a bunch of people who are not trained in peacekeeping," said Emilie Vardaman, 58, of Naco, a member of Women in Black, a pacifist organization that held a silent vigil on a stretch of road leading to the frontier Saturday.
CheckWidthImage(1,850,216); Ed Crisostomo / The Press-Enterprise Dottie Dalton, of Murrieta, leads the crowd of Minuteman Project volunteers in a chant in front of a Border Patrol station in Naco, Ariz.

"They say they're not going to confront or challenge anyone, but if someone starts being verbally abusive to them, if someone throws a rock at them, if something like that happens, I'm afraid they're going to respond," she said. "When someone has a gun, it puts them in a certain mind frame."

Arne Chandler, a Temecula resident and co-founder of the immigration control group Citizens' Alliance for a Secure America, said talk of violence seeks to deflect attention from The Minuteman Project's peaceful and law-abiding message.

"We're here to support the Border Patrol, and to send the message back to (President) Bush that we're not going to stand for the current situation," he said.

Culture Clash

Loud music set off a noontime encounter that flared and dissipated in front of a platoon of reporters in the desert at a Border Patrol station in Douglas, Ariz. It was near the boundary that a few hundred volunteers of the Minuteman Project have vowed to patrol during April.

Minuteman volunteer Jerry Doehr, 63, of Green Valley, Ariz., was outside the Border Patrol office where about 20 other civilian border-watch volunteers had come to demonstrate against border-control policies they say let too many people get into the country illegally.

Yards away, across the narrow asphalt street that leads to the Border Patrol headquarters, UC Riverside professor Armando Navarro and another 20 demonstrators gathered to protest The Minuteman Project. They held up a Mexican flag and a banner saying, in Spanish, "It is my country, it is my struggle."

Navarro's group turned on the music -- Spanish hip-hop, then Mexican polka. In Spanish, they chanted, too: "The force, united, will never be defeated."

Then more polka.

"We tried to ask the police to (turn it down) for us and they wouldn't do it," Doehr said.

So he walked across the street.

"I asked them to turn their music down," he said. "It bothered some of the people."

As Doehr walked across the street and addressed Navarro, reporters who had been scattered suddenly converged on them, pushing in with cameras and microphones.

Navarro made a statement to Doehr about the international economy ending with, "This is a word of warning for you. ... I don't think you want to be associated with these paramilitaries and vigilantes."

Doehr said little to respond, but asked Navarro, "Would you like a cold drink?"

"I would very much like a cold drink," Navarro said, and Doehr reached into a small cooler and pulled out a Sam's Club cola and handed it to Navarro.

The tension of the moment released like the fizz off a just-opened can of soda. Doehr returned to his camper truck, the reporters wandered away and soon Navarro's group decamped for another demonstration.

Demonstrations

On Saturday, near the entry to the Border Patrol station in Naco, demonstrators turned the derogatory border slang term for immigration agents -- "la migra" -- into praise with "Viva La Migra."

Placards in the crowd blamed Bush and Congress for failing to seal the border, but, following organizers' written instructions, avoided any criticism of Mexico.

Later in the day, immigration-rights demonstrators arrived and, in places, opposing factions stood alongside one another. Supervising Border Patrol Agent Lou Maheda said there were no violent confrontations and no one was arrested.

Navarro said he hopes the confrontation at the border can have a peaceful outcome.

"What we're pushing here is major immigration reform, and the conflict does not have to be resolved here in the streets of Douglas or Naco," he said. "It should be resolved in the halls of Congress of the United States and in the halls of Congress in Mexico."

Navarro spurned statements by Chris Simcox, a principal Minuteman Project organizer, that the United States should establish a well-regulated guest-worker program where employers provide safe transportation into the United States and foreign workers receive health benefits.

"This is the Chris Simcox who is wearing many hats," Navarro said. "You can't walk around with a weapon on your side, and at the same time put on the hat of the humanitarian who cares about the people crossing the desert. He has to decide if he's a humanitarian or a domestic terrorist."

In the Mexican border town of Agua Prieta, Navarro and representatives of several civil rights groups with the National Alliance of Human Rights that opposes The Minuteman Project spoke to about 125 people in the central plaza about 6 p.m.

"Every death of every Mexican who crosses the frontier is a tragedy," Lidia Guzman told the crowd.

The mayors of Agua Prieta and its twin border town of Douglas, Ariz., both praised The Minuteman opponents.

A short time earlier in Douglas, Ariz., about 150 people, including Minuteman Project volunteers and their supporters, chanted "Hey, hey, ho, ho, illegal aliens got to go," and sang "God Bless America" as they filed past the Border Patrol station.

Some of the group had attended a similar rally earlier in the day in nearby Naco.

Jim Gilchrist, a retired accountant from California who organized The Minuteman Project, said the people at the protest represented only a portion of 450 participants on hand for the patrols. He said many were conducting reconnaissance Saturday.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.