Border watch begins

TOMBSTONE, Ariz. -- Closely watched by nervous governments on both sides of the border, hundreds of anti-immigrant activists fanned out into the desert of southern Arizona Saturday, launching a self-styled citizen patrol to spot illegal immigrants sneaking into the United States.

The 400 or so volunteers of what's known as the Minuteman Project got an enthusiastic send-off from U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., one of the nation's harshest critics of immigration policy.

Tancredo dismissed critics who say the activists are taking the law into their own hands.

"We are saying to our government, 'please enforce the law.' That's not a radical idea, that's not a vigilante idea," said Tancredo, who got a standing ovation Friday at a packed meeting before the patrols began.

"It's an American concept," he said.

On the Mexican side of the border, patrols of soldiers were trying Saturday to dissuade immigrants from crossing into areas east of Tucson, Ariz., that the activists plan to patrol.

On the U.S. side, the Border Patrol said it didn't want the activists' help.

"We don't support this; we don't condone it," said Andrea Zortman, a Border Patrol spokesman. "We feel they are going to be more of a hindrance to our job than a help."

None of that dampened the enthusiasm of the participants, some from as far away as Florida and New York, who descended on the border town of Tombstone in RVs and rental cars, trailed by scores of reporters and a dozen satellite TV trucks.

Over the next month, participants will staff fixed outposts and conduct roving patrols. Organizers say that many will be armed. They have strict instructions not to stop or harm immigrants, only to report them to the Border Patrol.

In a series of rallies meant to christen the event, speakers compared it to the Boston Tea Party and quoted Thomas Jefferson. Some participants gave their names to reporters as John Hancock and Samuel Adams.

A congressional candidate from California stumped for votes.

"We're done writing letters; we're done making phone calls and showing up at meetings. It doesn't work. What we're doing in the next 30 days is good old-fashioned activism," said Chris Simcox, one of the event's co-founders.

Critics have complained that leaders will have difficulty controlling the actions of what's eventually expected to be more than 1,000 participants.

Although organizers say they are screening out members of hate groups, the project has been highlighted on the Aryan Nations' website, and human rights groups say a neo-Nazi organization, the National Alliance, has been handing out fliers in the border town of Douglas, Ariz., in support of the patrol.

In Tombstone, tourists who came to watch the daily re-enactment of the famous shootout at the OK Corral gawked instead at rallies and counterprotests.

Some patrollers sported camouflage clothing and body armor while counterdemonstrators banged pans and waved signs, denouncing the event as racist.

"We have the Border Patrol. We have the FBI. We don't need these yahoos coming from all over the country like this," Tombstone resident Robin Friestad said.

But organizers characterized the patrols as a form of political protest. They stressed that the sole intent was to draw attention to the country's porous southern border. Guided by smugglers, illegal immigrants cross into the U.S. through the shrub and cactus of the Arizona desert each day by the thousands.

Many participants said that the illicit migration is transforming towns and cities all over the country. Most carried personal stories along with a powerful conviction that the federal government has refused to do what it takes to enforce the country's borders.

Robert Thatcher, from Orange County, Calif., said that this year, he was closing the roofing business he's owned and operated for more than 25 years.

"My competitors are using illegal aliens, and I refuse to. I can't match their (lower) costs, and so it's either quit or wait around until I go bankrupt," said Thatcher, who planned to begin patrolling Sunday afternoon.

But for every rally Saturday by Minuteman Project participants there was a counterprotest, some led by nationally prominent Latino activists. At one point, the two groups waved signs across the road from each other in front of the Border Patrol station in Douglas as sheriff's deputies and armed immigration agents looked on.

After more than two hours, Jerry Duehr, a retiree and Minuteman Project participant from Arizona, walked across the road with a cooler, pulled out a can of Coke and offered it to the leader of the counterdemonstrators, Armando Navarro, a college professor from California.

"He believes strongly in what he's doing, just like we believe strongly in what we're doing. I think he's probably a decent person," Duehr said.

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