Minutemen: The Battle to Secure America's Borders

 by Bob Stapler  

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Jim Gilchrest and Jerome Corsi's Minutemen is a well-documented picture of an invasion-in-progress and sober critique of those such as George W. Bush who ignore or support it at the expense of our national sovereignty and way of life.

Minutemen: The Battle to Secure America's Borders
by Jim Gilchrist & Jerome R. Corsi
published by World Ahead Publishing; 1st edition (July 25, 2006)
Hdbk., 375 pgs.
ISBN: 0977898415

Given all the discussion of the illegal immigrant issue in these pages, the mainstream media, and elsewhere, you might think this book too late to market.  Yet, what this book details, comes direct from those manning our borders and witnessing first hand the invasion taking place.  Maligned by the media and the President as vigilantes, racists, and a danger, they give answer to the false charges made that they are a threat to anyone and have saved dozens who would otherwise have died crossing over.  From their own mouths, then, we have the other side of the story: who they are, why they feel it vital we deter illegal immigration, and what they expect to achieve.

The term "minutemen" conjures an image of backwoodsmen blazing away at invaders from behind rocks and trees.  However, as founders Jim Gilchrist and Chris Simcox show, there’s more than one way to beat off an invasion.  The Minutemen are more like the coast watchers of World War II; they spot movement and report it to those charged with taking the appropriate action.  By spotting and reporting, they have succeeded in showing how the border ought to be managed: given the proper manpower, resources, and priority.  The Minutemen do not expect to stop this invasion themselves, but do expect to draw greater attention to it, and they have exploded the myth that sealing our borders is futile.  The negative reactions they’ve received, moreover, reveal that there are some disturbing participants in this invasion; with leaders, business operators, and well-meaning fools aligning with globalists myopically intent on open-borders, leftists bent on creating exploitable chaos, Mexican separatists out to conquer the southwest U.S. (from Texas to California), drug-dealers, human flesh-traders, and criminals enabled by a society impotent to respond, and anarchists hoping to eradicate notions of national sovereignty.  They’ve flushed out some interesting, if unexpected, rats; perfectly willing to subvert sovereignty and security for money, power, and over-wrought, over-sold ideas unlikely to deliver on their promises.

In this book Gilchrist and Jerome Corsi detail all the dangers of an open-borders policy and the very real consequences arising from it.  They take us to our southern border to witness the many ways it is penetrated, drug and "slave" trades conducted, citizens harassed and harmed, property ruined, social-services plundered, laws defied, and enforcement services overwhelmed.   Besides activities along the border, the authors show how the invasion is felt across the country.  They show that illegals are a massive drain on social services, constitute a major component of crime, undermine and evade law enforcement, undercut worker gains more than supplement the workforce, disrupt and corrupt the political process, abet terrorism, corrupt public morals, propagandize education and the media against us, and threaten to overwhelm a system made inexcusably feeble through an excess of empathy.  They give us proof of Mexico’s perfidy, and collusion with our own government in encouraging the invasion for political and economic reasons; which causes you to wonder if our leadership hasn’t lost its collective mind.  Moreover, they illuminate a decades-long movement among illegals and resident-aliens to claim our southwest territory as though their own, creating a new and mythical sovereignty in place of our own.

Perhaps the most surprising and unexpected disclosure is the antagonism practiced and encouraged by our own government against the Minutemen.  Embarrassed to have his image as protector tarnished, George W. Bush has responded by making the Minutemen a scapegoat with which to disguise policies contradicting his sworn duty to defend the border.  It is clear from his policies and actions that Bush is a globalist preferring free-trade across open-borders; he has willfully risked our national sovereignty to bolster trade.  Even so, we’d expect Bush to recognize expectations are often overtaken by events and that the damage to sovereignty has gone too far.  If illegals had no design of taking land from us, if there were not large numbers of them dedicated to creating a "Trojan Horse" subversive culture sufficient to overwhelm legitimate society and wrest whole states from us, if most illegals were not openly and antagonistically in support of this design, if it were true (or nearly true) his "guest workers" could be relied on to return whence they came, if they were not already creating a crime-based Columbia-style threat to authority, if they were not a significant factor masking cross-border terrorism, and if not shutting down hospitals and other services through over-burden, he might almost be justified in ignoring our anxiety.  Almost; yet he would still be unjustified in sanctioning an illegal presence against the will of legitimate citizenry.  George Bush is not above the law or in any position to abrogate our law simply because he doesn’t agree with it.  It is still the law preferred by the majority of citizens, and only citizens are entitled to decide this.  Our country is our home; it is not an abstraction of politics.  Breaking-and-entering is still a crime no one can afford, a principle as old as society.

The book gives us a solid look at crime as a by-product of a porous border.  The flow is bi-directional with drugs and labor smuggled in one direction and evasion the other.  The lack of border security means drug lords, thieves, murderers, coyotes, and others can escape back to Mexico within hours, certain they will evade justice.  Hispanic gangs, with roots in the communist turmoil of the 1980’s, have grown in size to the point where law enforcement is impotent to control them, and are virtually a law unto themselves in places like Los Angeles, El Paso and Brownsville.  The story of the brutal execution of Police-officer David March serves to illustrate the corruption and frustration involved.  His killer, Armando Arroyo Garcia, had multiple arrests and had been deported 3 times prior to being pulled over by Officer March.  Garcia first wounded then executed March before fleeing to Mexico, where he has remained shielded behind Mexico’s anti-extradition provision for over four years.  The United States allows extradition to Mexico without reciprocity.  The Mexican government is understandably happy to export its own crime problems.  Less comprehensible is our own government’s complicity in letting Mexico get away with this, a situation that only grows in danger for both countries.

Gilchrist and Corsi further document the hypocrisy of local parade and protest organizers who pervert legal terms to prevent Minutemen from having an equal say.  In places like San Juan Capistrano and Laguna Beach, Minutemen are blocked from participating in events that are expressly "civic."  While Minutemen are barred from participating and enjoined to "stay out" during these events, groups openly advocating Latino racism and territorial subversion are encouraged to participate and are protected in their "free-speech" rights by event organizers.  These organizers (and their lawyers) selectively preclude speech as a consideration in barring the Minutemen; only to make speech the basis for including radicals.  During recent protest marches by Hispanics in which Mexican flags were prominent displayed and U.S. flags openly abused, Minutemen attempting to counter-protest were repeatedly intimidated into silence while policemen artfully vanished and the media turned cameras elsewhere.   Despite these frustrations, the Minutemen have succeeded in preventing these hypocrisies from going completely unnoticed.  The alternative media of talk-radio and the Internet are instrumental to getting the word out, as evidenced in websites like IC.

The other hypocrisy demonstrated in the book is the argument that border control is racist and anti-immigrant.  As Gilchrist amply proves, it is neither.  Border control will continue to enable legitimate immigrants to enter the U.S.; it is only those who wantonly violate our sovereignty (every one of whom has committed at least one criminal act) who should be barred further entry.  No nation on earth can sustain the kind of invasion we are seeing and remain intact.

No other nation is as generous as the United States in welcoming people of every description.  However, it is this very generosity that makes us vulnerable, as no other, to the abuses of those with no love for us and more than a little envy.

Despite the title, what Gilchrist and Corsi haven’t given us is much of a look at his fellow Minutemen (and women) beyond a brief profile of himself and his rules of engagement.  I would have liked to know more about other first-responders to the Minutemen call, personal reasons for answering the call, mindset, morale, what it’s like standing watch, defining moments, and how they see the Minutemen program working out.  Instead, the book focuses on the invasion, those who support keeping our borders insecure, and the danger they represent.  This lack does nothing to dilute the Minutemen message, but it would have been better with more voices.

Otherwise, it is a well-documented picture of an invasion-in-progress and sober critique of those who ignore or support it at our expense.  My personal feeling is the Minutemen have done a tremendous job and we owe them a strong show of support.  They have been careful to avoid combative situations, but still stand in harm's way doing the job our government ought to be doing.  For that we are indebted.

Minutemen: The Battle to Secure America's Borders is available on Amazon.com.

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