Minutemen Seek Recruits. Government Helps.

onelongsong wrote:

just call and i'll be there in a minute.
(sorry; i couldn't resist. jlew said it best.)

YOOHOO!!

jlew24asu wrote:

right. I think people see them as a bunch of gun slinging cowboys looking to shoot anyone who hops the fence.

Well I didn't get that impression from the information you supplied, but then I've only got the information that you supplied and the original post to go by because it's all news to me.

If the organization is as it purports to be then I think it's a good idea as long as no one gets hurt. And that's either the minutemen or the illegals.

It's a shame that governments aren't coming up with better solutions to illegal immigration though.

onelongsong wrote:

the minutemen are NOT armed. that's another group we don't talk about. i saw an interview with some of them and they said they'd gladly pick veggies for $3.00/hr. it's better than $0/hr. their families are starving on the little help the government gives.

So as you know, I've been very busy, haven't had much time to read all the information that jlew supplied, but the gist of this is that these people are volunteers then? Is that right? Oh and they're unarmed. So they patrol border areas and when they find illegals, they arrest them? Is that correct?
Gee now that I think about it it's really a complicated little arrangement. Like how do the know people are illegal? Do they have the powers to request papers? Do they have the powers to arrest?

Jeanie wrote:

So as you know, I've been very busy, haven't had much time to read all the information that jlew supplied, but the gist of this is that these people are volunteers then? Is that right? Oh and they're unarmed. So they patrol border areas and when they find illegals, they arrest them? Is that correct?
Gee now that I think about it it's really a complicated little arrangement. Like how do the know people are illegal? Do they have the powers to request papers? Do they have the powers to arrest?

...
Unarmed as in they carry guns on their belts:
http://angrywhitekid.blogs.com/weblog/images/minuteman.jpg
http://www.stevequayle.com/News.alert/05_Global/05_Global_pics/050407.Minuteman.jpg

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/02/12/navarrette/index.html

UPDATE: Two audio reports from Campo, CA on 2005-07-31:
http://radio.indymedia.org/news/2005/08/6263.php
http://radio.indymedia.org/news/2005/08/6264.php

Two migrant people were shot under mysterious circumstances last week in the border region where the Minutemen have been patrolling. One was shot in Mexico and one was shot inside the US. While "Mexican authorities" have claimed that "bandits" were behind it, the victims were quick to point out that nothing was stolen from them. This strange circumstance is added to by the fact that these "bandits" used laser scopes to target their victims.

Numerous calls have been made to the sheriff in Campo, CA, but still no investigation is taking place. In addition, James Chase admits to transporting undocumented people, which is a crime, but he is also not having charges pressed against him, unlike the volunteers in Ariznoa who were sent to jail for taking migrants in critical condition to a hospital. Many are saying, "Chase and Co. MUST be investigated". Gente Unida held a press conference on Friday, July 29th to address this issue.

To contact the sheriff, Phone: (619) 478-5378 Fax: (619) 478-9076 or go to: http://www.sdsheriff.net/rural/substations_campo.html

Click Read More for more comments and corporate new
http://sandiego.indymedia.org/en/2005/07/110168.shtml

http://www.splcenter.org/intel/news/item.jsp?aid=54


Going Lawless
Border Guardians leader calls for violence
By Susy Buchanan and David Holthouse

April 19, 2006 -- A prominent anti-immigration leader has secretly urged the nation’s largest neo-Nazi group to launch a campaign of violence and harassment against undocumented workers in the United States.
Laine Lawless, who started a group called Border Guardians last year, sent an April 3 e-mail to Mark Martin, "SS commander" of the Western Ohio unit of the National Socialist Movement, which has 59 chapters in 30 states. It was titled, "How to GET RID OF THEM!"

The e-mail from Lawless, who was also an original member of Chris Simcox’s vigilante militia before it morphed into the Minuteman Project in early 2005, detailed 11 suggestions for ways to harass and terrorize undocumented immigrants, including robbery and "beating up illegals" as they leave their workplace.

"Maybe some of your warriors for the race would be the kind of people willing to implement some of these ideas," Lawless wrote. "I’m not ready to come out on this. ... Please don’t use my name. THANKS."

At the request of Lawless, who declined to respond to questions from the Intelligence Report, Martin posted her suggestions to a number of neo-Nazi bulletin boards. Those suggestions included:

"Steal the money from any illegal walking into a bank or check cashing place."

"Make every illegal alien feel the heat of being a person without status. ... I hear the rednecks in the South are beating up illegals as the textile mills have closed. Use your imagination."

"Discourage Spanish-speaking children from going to school. Be creative."

"Create an anonymous propaganda campaign warning that any further illegal immigrants will be shot, maimed or seriously messed-up upon crossing the border. This should be fairly easy to do, considering the hysteria of the Spanish language press, and how they view the Minutemen as ‘racists & vigilantes.’"
The Report contacted Lawless for comment, sending her copies of her own e-mails that included their original headers, as she requested. But after receiving the copies, Lawless refused to talk.

Lawless, the former high priestess of Sisterhood of the Moon, a lesbian pagan organization, has been heavily involved in anti-immigration extremism since 2004, when she joined Simcox's Civil Homeland Defense outfit, as it was then called. That same year, she invited militia members to her private ranch in Cochise County, Ariz. "I coordinate with Chris [Simcox], so anyone who wants to come is welcome," she wrote in a post to an online user group, "Border War" which was reposted on sites such as "A Well Regulated Militia."

Lawless was featured in numerous media reports on the first Minuteman Project campaign in April 2005, and has patrolled side-by-side with Minuteman vice-president Carmen Mercer. Lawless also traveled to Texas to join the Texas Minutemen in October, when she was quoted in The Austin Chronicle saying she gets an "intellectual and political orgasm" from spying on pro-immigration groups. In that interview, she accused one pro-immigration activist of inserting chants of "White Power!" into an audiotape of Minuteman rallies to discredit the movement.

This March 29 and 30, Lawless was quoted on CNN attacking a humanitarian group that leaves food and water for people crossing the Sonora Desert to illegally enter the United States.

In April, just six days after Lawless e-mailed her suggestions to neo-Nazi Mark Martin, Border Guardians made national news when Lawless and other members burned a Mexican flag in front of the Mexican Consulate in Tucson, where Lawless’ group is based. Before the flag was set aflame, Lawless held a press conference.

"As always, Border Guardians remains committed to only lawful actions to combat illegal immigration," she said. "We are committed to practice only peaceful, lawful action in defense of our country."

Her e-mail the prior week to the National Socialist Movement, however, clearly revealed a darker agenda. "There are several tactics, some legal and some not-so," she wrote. "Sabotage the things they like: entertainment, food, beer... . BRAVO to the person who cut down the Spanish language radio station towers just North of Phoenix! Now that sends a message!"

That April 3 E-mail was not the only contact between Lawless and the NSM. In that e-mail, she writes of leaving a voicemail message on the NSM’s hotline. And, in an earlier e-mail to NSM commander Martin dated March 6, she congratulated the NSM on provoking a riot in Toledo, Ohio, in October 2005. "I still think those riots were wonderful!" Lawless wrote.

The contact between Lawless and the NSM is not the first evidence to emerge of overlapping Minuteman and neo-Nazi membership. A few members of the National Alliance and Aryan Nations signed up with the original Minuteman Project in April 2005, and at least two frequent contributors to the white supremacist website Stormfront volunteered for Minuteman co-founder Jim Gilchrist’s failed Congressional campaign.

Like Lawless, Martin would not comment for this story. But he did offer this tagline when he forwarded Lawless’ suggested tactics to other neo-Nazis: "The information contained in this email is Racially and Religiously privileged and confidential. It is intended for specific Aryan recipients only."

Anthony Griggs contributed to this report.

Intelligence Report
Summer 2006


Read the e-mail
The text of the e-mail from Border Guardians leader Laine Lawless to "SS commander" Mark Martin is available in a downloadable
PDF.

Jeanie wrote:

Ok, not to be ignorant, but what's a minutemen?

I appreciate all that info. I can't download the youtube coz the dial up would mean it would take me to next year! But I'll read through all this stuff you've posted. Thanks.

This seems to be a very big issue that I've stumbled across. So these guys that you have posted are supposed to be in this Minuteman thingy and they carry guns? And this is bad because?

I'm as big a border security guy as they come, but I'm a little squeamish about a bunch of gun-packing schmoes wandering the borders looking for Mexicans.

Border security needs to be left to properly trained professionals. We don't let civilians wander the streets of the cities fighting crime (unless they are Batman). Why would we allow them to wander the borders fighting illegal immigration?