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News Article from The (Portland) Oregonian - July 23, 2007

Packaged as a patriotic crusade in 2005 to safeguard the United States'
border and pressure legislators to bear down on illegal immigration, the
Minuteman movement saw its chapters spring up in nearly every state,
including Oregon. 

The message was clear, and it spread quickly: If you are here illegally,
you don't deserve what America has to offer. 

Abruptly in May, however, chapters in Oregon and a half-dozen other
states were terminated by the parent organization. The group's president
fired several national and state leaders after they questioned the
board's management and financial accountability. 

The ousted leaders quickly formed a splinter group, the Patriots' Border
Alliance, and are pledging to be just as aggressive in targeting illegal
immigrants and their employers. 

In Oregon, Mike Forest, one of the ousted leaders now heading a Patriots
group, plans to run for the U.S. Senate in 2010. He says local minutemen
will continue to partner with other anti-illegal immigration allies and
campaign to allow only legal residents to get state driver's licenses,
pressure employers to require documentation, and push for Spanish
speakers to speak only English in public schools. 

"We have some serious issues with how elected officials are doing their
jobs, "Forest said. "Oregonians are speaking up for themselves, and we
need to listen to what they want." 

Forest declines to say how many members make up the Oregon chapter,
insisting the number "is not a concern." And it's unclear how much clout
the minutemen have in swaying public opinion in Salem, including the
recent debate on whether to require proof of residency to drive. 

"Whoever this Minuteman person is or whoever they are, I have not had
any contact with them," said Sen. Rick Metsger, D-Welches, chairman of
the committee that weighed the driver's license issue. "They don't exist
politically. They're a nonentity." 

140 chapters nationwide  

Started just before the illegal immigration debate incited the nation,
the Minuteman movement was founded by two men campaigning to close the
Southwest border. 

Disagreements split the group after a few months, and Chris Simcox, one
of the founders, moved on to form the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps,
based in Arizona. Combined, the groups today have about 140 chapters
nationwide, leaders say. 

Members at the local level tried to capitalize on citizens' pent-up
concerns about the changing cultural makeup of their communities,
overburdened social services, crowded schools and crimes committed by
illegal immigrants. 

The groups' strategy started at securing borders, spread to interior
states and then to lobbying at the nation's Capitol. 

Last summer, Forest planted the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps' flag in
Oregon. The state Department of Agriculture employee said he was
disturbed that some of his relatives were denied state services because,
he says, "if you're not Mexican or pregnant, you don't apply." He also
protested the presence of state resources at events aimed at reaching
Mexican nationals. 

In alliance with Oregonians for Immigration Reform, Oregon minutemen
targeted day labor sites, turning over license plate numbers of
employers to authorities. 

"Any benefits should be going to Americans, to Oregonians, not to
someone who breaks the law," Forest said. 

In May, just when Congress was taking up the immigration reform vote,
Forest and the Oregon chapter were scrapped by Simcox, the national
president. 

Forest and other leaders had pressured Simcox to disclose how the
organization's money was being spent. They requested a meeting and put
together a lengthy list of lingering concerns. 

Simcox never showed and, fulfilling an earlier threat, fired Forest and
leaders in New York, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Ohio and Oklahoma. The
national deputy executive director, Bob Wright, was also terminated. 

"People wanted to talk to the boss, and the boss fired everyone who
wanted to talk to him," Wright said, contending that the group has
strayed from its original mission. Wright says that since the fallout, a
couple of hundred members have abandoned the group. 

Simcox and Al Garza, Minuteman Civil Defense national executive
director, say the accusations are false. Separately, they face a lawsuit
from a donor who claims his $100,000 was supposed to help build a border
fence but didn't. 

"People were basically trying to sabotage the organization," Simcox said
from Arizona. He says that the group is stronger since the rift and that
membership has grown. 

Opened "eyes and ears"  

Minuteman Civil Defense has "opened the eyes and ears of America,"
helping defeat immigration reform proposals in Congress, Garza said. 

"This issue of illegal immigration would not be where it is now if it
weren't for us," he said. 

Critics who track the group closely call that claim inflated. 

The minutemen, more than most anti-immigration groups nationwide, have
helped popularize the anti-immigration sentiment. They also spurred the
formation of more than 100 extremist groups since 2005, said Heidi
Beirich, deputy director for the Southern Poverty Law Center's
Intelligence Project, an Alabama-based program that tracks such
activity. 

But to say the group has shifted public sentiment or that it was
instrumental in weighing down Congress' compromise is an overstatement,
political analysts say. 

The voice of anti-immigrant groups as a whole, along with the complexity
of the proposal and lack of concrete support all around, defeated the
bill -- not the minutemen, said Audrey Singer, a senior fellow with the
Brookings Institution, a nonpartisan research and policy think tank in
Washington, D.C. 

"It would be hard for anyone to gauge this group's impact," Singer said. 

She said figures shift depending on how the question is worded, but
national polls generally show that a "sizable middle" of America isn't
completely for or against illegal immigrants. 

But as legislation continues to stall in Congress, and many states pass
their own laws to limit benefits to illegal immigrants, the minutemen
vow to continue their campaign. 

"We're going to be around," Garza said, "doing the same thing we've been
doing: border security, holding employers accountable and making sure
the laws are enforced."

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