I thought if the poor were streaming up in family size chunks from the distant South, then the Earth itself was failing. I could not find a name for this new condition. Now everywhere is a line and crossing these lines becomes harder and the lines themselves leap magically upward and become walls and razorwire and bullets and cells, absolute. —
Charles Bowden, Some of the Dead Are Still Breathing
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Of the many players in this border story, Minutemen are probably the most extreme and marginalized. However, their ideas are not at all shocking or novel. They seem to take a lot of rhetoric from both sides of the political spectrum and mesh them into some strange hybrid of radical ideals. They are, like most people on either far side of the right-left continuum, consumed with conspiracy theories.
When we met Al Garza, the founder of Arizona’s Patriots Coalition (an offshoot of the Minutemen movement) and one of his cohorts, Heywood “Woody” Mitchell, I don’t think either one of them said the word “government” without using “corrupt” in the same sentence.
So, there’s a commonality between the Minutemen, academics, media, and the activist community—no one’s satisfied with the government’s treatment of our southern border.
But is this message being heard? Maybe no one’s using the right tactics… The situation seems to be increasingly becoming more convoluted as our government continues to look the other way.
Garza and Mitchell had us meet them at their new headquarters, an older building in Palominas, Arizona that resembled a small law office, only stripped of furniture, with bare walls and a few folding chairs. They explained apologetically that they had only recently acquired the building, as Mitchell’s bull terrier, Rocky, dutifully demonstrated by sniffing the perimeter of the room between pettings from his master.
Palominas is one of those towns you’ll miss if you blink, but there must be some water around somewhere because it’s a patch of green amidst miles of desert—nothing but a thick barbed saguaro here and there, scrubby clusters of mesquite, and dry as bones red earth. Here though, a line of lush trees actually obscure the border wall, about a half mile from where the Patriot’s Headquarters stand.
The Patriots’ protocol is to patrol the border each night, with night vision goggles, flashlights and communication devices, looking for migrants. If they come across a group, they do the admirable thing and give them food, water, and any medical help they can offer.
Then they call the Border Patrol.
They have no legal power to hold the migrants, and they say they don’t attempt to. “We have to be very careful,” says Mitchell. Sometimes, the migrants remain until Border Patrol shows up, especially if they are in poor health. Other times, they flee.
To defend his methods, Garza is a fan of slippery-slope reasoning. “If we’re gonna give these people amnesty, we might as well give amnesty to everyone who’s in prison,” he asked. “Why are illegal aliens not accountable?”
He’s concerned that the new immigration reform will grant all undocumented workers amnesty. He probably shouldn’t lose any sleep over this… Most activists think this reform will likely be more of the same: security, militarization, regulation.
Interestingly, Garza is of Hispanic descent. He grew up in Texas, but his ancestors are from Mexico and Spain, and he speaks with an accent. Clearly, Mexican culture was an integral part of his upbringing, but at some time in his life this tie evidently went sour.
On undocumented immigrants, Garza says “They damage wherever they go. I like rice and beans, I like menudo, stuff like that. That culture was once very close to my heart, but I’ve lost the luster for it. There is no dignity any more. There is no honor.”
Garza cannot even stand Spanish music anymore. He’s convinced that this new crop of immigrants is a lazy bunch, glomming off of America’s welfare system and even getting free health care.
I had no statistics to argue this, so I didn’t. Still, I found it hard to believe that someone speaking limited English and no papers could acquire welfare. I once tried to get food stamps when I was working a crap job and paying New York rent, but I gave up when I realized how difficult it was to navigate the system.
Like most Americans, Garza and Mitchell want what’s best for themselves and their families. They swing to the right on this, though, as it’s a typically Republican move to begrudge others welfare if it’s coming out of their change-purse. In response to the Dream Act (the bill that would allow children of illegal immigrants who were born here and grew up here to apply to American universities), Garza says, “Why are we discussing the Dream Act? We’re talking about people who are here illegally. We should be talking about how to better my life, as a retiree, who put in fifty years of work. They should be talking bout my children and my grandchildren, not somebody’s children who are here illegally.”
The Patriots Coalition advocates bolstering the border by adding more fences, more virtual fences, more guards, and even bringing in the National Guard. They are staunchly for full militarization. “I want helicoptors, I want planes, I want my Commander in Chief to secure our borders,” Garza says, (although he does not acknowledge Obama as “his” president.)
While he’s rejected his heritage, Garza insists this is not a race thing. “I’m all for people being here legally,” he says. “If you come through the front door, and you sign the guest book, you’re welcome. But if you go through the back door, you’re hiding something. And you’re not welcome in my country.”
We’ve heard that before. Of course, the problem with this logic goes back to the government policy. The amount of people we let in legally simply doesn’t compare to the number of migrants we employ.
I was left with an uneasy feeling after we left these two men. On our way back to Tucson, we headed to Bisbee, a historic copper-mining town nestled into a little mountain range. It was like Gatlinburg without all the obesity and fudge. But there was an excellent coffee roaster.
But Garza’s shrill voice kept haunting me. His group may be a miniscule minority and people may disagree with their tactics, but at least they appreciate the scale of this issue.
Innocents die every day. Our land is being increasingly militarized. We are holding mass trials that go against the Constitution, and depriving detainees of basic needs. We are hunting people down in the desert. There’s rogue profiteering and unchecked rape, theft and violence in the desert. What about this is unlike war?
“We just want our borders secure, and we want to make sure illegal immigrants are held accountable for their actions. If that doesn’t happen then we aren’t America, we’re just another third world country,” Garza says. “I’m fighting for my children, I’m fighting for my grandchildren, I’m fighting for my friends who died in Vietnam, I’m fighting for America. And this is a war.”