Minuteman Racists??? Do they holding a racist view? Do they are Involved on Supremacist Groups? Find out..

I was browsing thru the Internet and I found a great and excellent article about the Minuteman racist view.

Looking into the Minuteman, Racism. By Joe Killian.

A lot of the blog discussion – here and elsewhere - in the wake of the Minutemen’s stop in Greensboro this week revolved around whether the group is, as the group's protestors and detractors claim, in bed with racists or motivated by racism.I think it’s important to make the distinction between people who hold racist views (some of whom were certainly in attendance at the rally, but who did not make up the entirety or even the bulk of the crowd) and people who are actively involved in organized white supremacist groups.

Chip Atkinson posted at this blog and on Ed Cone's that he was skeptical about claims of racism among Minutemen and could find no evidence of ORGANIZED racism on the part of the Minutemen or their supporters.I pointed Chip to the Southern Poverty Law center and their publication, Intelligence Report, which reports extensively on violent radical groups of all stripes and works with the United States government, sharing intelligence on domestic terrorism. Calling the SPLC too liberal to be considered credible, Chip said he still didn't buy it.And that's a valid enough position. You can't swallow everything that's given to you. It's the reader's responsibility to be somewhat skeptical and to ask for proof, particularly when information doesn't come from an actual news agency or someone with any journalism background.So, in my off-time, I did a little old-fashioned independent reporting on the claims of the SPLC and the Minuteman Project regarding ORGANIZED racists. Since I have no link with the Minutemen, the International Socialist Organization or any of the groups that protested the Minutemen and am not a member of any partisan organization I'm hoping Chip and others with questions about this take my reporting seriously or investigate it themselves. It's as accurate as I can make it, either way.A little Internet research, a few e-mails and six phone calls have produced the following:
Continue reading: http://joekillian.blogspot.com/2006/05/looking-into-minutemen-racism_13.html

The Titanic Minuteman base groups meltdown. Groups Anti Immigrants fighting for Money and power. Gilchrist said groups like ALIPAC see him as competition for fundraising dollars.


Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist says group’s goals have been hindered by in-fighting and some members’ ‘defecting.

Traditionally tight-knit anti-illegal immigration organizations are roiled in internal conflict.
Struggles for power and finances have led leaders in the movement to split ties with Jim Gilchrist, the founder of the Minuteman Project.

Bickering continues over who has control of the original Minuteman organization and once-faithful members are now deserting the group. Barbed e-mails and accusations fly among the former Minuteman loyalists.

“I’m fighting on three fronts,” Gilchrist said. “I’m fighting the federal government, I’m fighting the reconquistas, and I’m fighting the people defecting from my own organization.”

Gilchrist’s Minuteman Project, which has become nearly synonymous with the anti-illegal immigration movement, is under fire from many other like-minded groups.

William Gheen, of the North Carolina-based Americans for Legal Immigration political action committee (ALIPAC), said Gilchrist is a threat to the anti-illegal immigration movement. Gheen said people in his organization receive bizarre e-mails from the Minuteman founder.

“We see Gilchrist as ... prone to act against the good of the movement,” Gheen said. “He has a pattern of broken alliances and relationships.”
Gilchrist said groups like ALIPAC see him as competition for fundraising dollars.

“As long as the Minuteman Project exists, we take away from their donor base,” Gilchrist said.

Huntington Beach resident and California Coalition for Immigration Reform founder Barbara Coe was one of the former Minutemen who wrestled the organization away from Gilchrist in 2007.

Coe was one of the first to rush to the border with the Minutemen in 2005, but she said the unity that once brought the activists together has devolved into internal strife.
“I am very distressed about the shadow that has been cast on the movement,” Coe said.

The struggles make it difficult for anti-illegal immigration groups to present a united front, limiting the effectiveness of the movement, Coe said.

Gilchrist sees the same phenomenon.

“You’ve got every group attacking every other group,” he said. “Ninety percent of our time is spent on infighting, and 10% is devoted to the issue.”
The bickering is surprising considering how close anti-illegal immigration activists have traditionally been. Groups such as Immigration Watchdog and Save Our State have large online forums that keep the groups in close contact.

Laguna Beach activist Eileen Garcia has been fighting to shut down Laguna’s Day Workers Center. She has organized multiple protests against the center.

Garcia said the groups’ close contact helps in organizing large demonstrations.

Garcia founded Gilchrist’s Angels, a women’s auxiliary of the Minutemen.

She too split with Gilchrist’s organization in 2007, founding the Betsy Ross Patriots — another anti-illegal women’s group.

Illegal immigration is one of the hot-button issues of the presidential primary elections, thanks in part to anti-illegal immigration groups and activists who have been touting the issue for the past several years.

The efforts of various border enforcement advocacy groups have brought the issue to the forefront of political debate — especially in Republican circles. The fractures within the once tight-knit coalition of anti illegal-immigration groups have become even more apparent during the presidential primaries.

Garcia supported Mitt Romney, as did Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a vocal opponent of illegal immigration in Congress. Many anti-illegal activists like Coe supported Ron Paul’s candidacy.

Gilchrist has thrown his support behind former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. The endorsement has earned Gilchrist more criticism from within the anti-illegal immigration movement.

Gheen and leaders from more than 80 immigration activist organizations signed a letter decrying Gilchrist’s endorsement.

“We denounce Jim Gilchrist’s solo endorsement of a pro-amnesty and open-borders candidate for president. Mr. Gilchrist does not speak for us,” the letter read.

Gilchrist said he was contacted by the Huckabee campaign and asked to come aboard. Gilchrist said he asked campaign members to outline Huckabee’s immigration policies before he signed on.

The Huckabee campaign responded by posting a detailed immigration plan on its website.

Huckabee campaign manager Ed Rollins said the Huckabee immigration plan is to build a fence within 18 months, deport illegal immigrants and make legal immigration faster and easier.

Rollins said they believe they have the best plan for illegal immigration, but sometimes passionate groups split with leaders.

“In any group that has strong emotions, which certainly the Minutemen and others have, there’s always leadership battles. There’s always people that don’t like people that get too much attention,” Rollins said.

Gilchrist said he supports Huckabee as a more moderate candidate than Ron Paul, who is popular with his critics.

He said Paul supporters are generally of the ultra-right mentality.

The extremism of this faction of the anti-illegal immigration movement is a factor in its demise, Gilchrist said.

“While Ron Paul himself is a pretty good guy, his supporters are lunatics,” Gilchrist said.

“They’re as dangerous and vile as the reconquistas on the left.”

The presidential primaries are just one example of an issue causing rifts within the border enforcement movement, but some activists say the differences may not be such a bad thing.
“Internal turmoil and dissension is always the sign of a growing and expanding movement,” Rohrabacher said

According to Garcia, the movement is fracturing because illegal immigration has become a major issue that no longer needs a united front to survive.

“A lot of established groups are starting to split up because it’s much more mainstream,” Garcia said.

“There’s no longer a need to place yourself into a niche and say, ‘I’m a Minuteman’ or ‘I’m a member of Save Our State.’ All concerned citizens of America can call themselves Minutemen.”

Rohrabacher agrees with that assessment. He said upstart movements have to stick together.

“When a movement is small and inconsequential, people tend to get along better because it’s almost family-like,” Rohrabacher said.

 Jim Gilchrist of Aliso Viejo and Chris Simcox founded the Minuteman Project in 2005. They organized citizen patrols along the Arizona-Mexico border. The action shined a spotlight on the issue of illegal immigration.

 Simcox cut ties to the group later that year over financial disputes and founded the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps. Gilchrist changed tactics from physically watching the border to trying to influence public policy and opinion.

Controversial anti-immigration activist visits Atascadero to endorse Huckabee. They're not here to pick strawberries. "They're here to fulfill their pockets."


You've gotta have some chutzpa to call yourself a minuteman. The title refers to either a fast lover or a patriot whose ideas of national independence and individual responsibility were at stake in the battle against colonial England.

Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minuteman Project, is no doubt reaching for fraternity with the latter, but his critics may find it hard to reconcile his group of self-appointed immigration regulators with the likes of Paul Revere. Each waged a battle that involved the haves and have-nots, but it would seem as though the modern minuteman's role has been reversed.

Like him or hate him, the controversial founder of the group will be speaking at Malibu Brew in Atascadero on Jan. 26 at 11 a.m. in support of Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. The event is a fundraiser sponsored by an Atascadero group for the election of Huckabee.

Although Gilchrist's support for the former governor of Arkansas is based on one issue--immigration--this modern minuteman isn't a one-dimensional personality. In a phone interview, he delivered both insights and incites.

"They're not here to pick strawberries," he said of immigrant farm workers. "They're here to pick pockets."

Gilchrist started the Minuteman Project in 2004, in response to what he calls a failure of the government to uphold its own laws concerning immigration. The basic function of the group is to physically monitor the border for people trying to cross illegally, and then report any activity to border patrol agents. Minutemen aren't tasked to enforce the law themselves. Mostly they push their agenda in Washington, which is why Gilchrist will speak in support of Huckabee.

His endorsement of the presidential hopeful is the result of several meetings and interviews. No other "reasonable" Republican candidate's stance on immigration, Gilchrist said, better embodies his own.

Gilchrist is for the criminalization and imprisonment of both undocumented immigrants and their employers, who he often refers to as modern-day slave traders. He supports a 2,000-mile wall between the United States and Mexico, but opposes tactics such as GPS monitoring of legal immigrants--"They're not prisoners," he said. He's also critical of any people, be they "ultra lefties" or "ultra righties," who would use violence to further their goals.

He supports more funding for increased border patrol agents, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents accountability from politicians who willfully ignore set immigration laws and he opposes health care, education, and voting rights for illegal immigrants.

Gilchrist comes off as a no-nonsense guy, someone who would be easy to get along with, so long as he stayed off the soapbox. His position--that the U.S. economy and culture are better off with fewer documented immigrants and zero undocumented immigrants--is crystal clear in his own mind, and he speaks at length, with an energetic Hemingway-simple style, about the "invasion" by people from South and Central Americas.

Many people don't agree with his stance, a truth that he accepts with a certain grace, as if it were a badge of honor or the natural reaction to his radical ideas. His website openly displays the scores of hate mail aimed at him, with such crude attacks as "fuck you Jim, I hope you die." He considers such comments, along with infighting among the anti-immigration community, as a bunch of "crap" and a distraction from the real issues at hand.

But for all the controversy surrounding him and the personal attacks, many people find something in his message. He doesn't charge any dues to join the Minutemen, but he accepts donations to his cause. Last year, he collected more than $400,000.