Immigration Reform Advocate Gears Up for Border Patrol Project

by Chad Groening
March 1, 2005

Like This Page? Tweet

(AgapePress) - The organizer of a citizens' effort aimed at calling attention to the illegal alien invasion problem says he hopes to provide valuable assistance to the heard working border patrol agents who guard Arizona's U.S.-Mexican border.

As the date draws near for the commencement of James Gilchrist's Operation Minuteman project, the ranks of those who want to take part continue to swell. The retired certified public accountant now has more than 530 volunteers from 47 states prepared to camp out in the Arizona desert with him during his border patrol project/public awareness campaign.

The Operation Minuteman field project is slated to begin on April 1. Gilchrist says his desert delegation will have a two-fold mission. "The primary goal here is, number one, to bring national awareness to the illegal alien invasion crisis," he says.

The organizer of this desert patrol project hopes to emphasize to the public that undocumented foreigners are pouring into the U.S., most coming illegally across the Mexican-American border, at an alarming rate. He notes, "The 10,000 per day is an easy number to substantiate."

The other goal on the agenda, Gilchrist says, is to support those whose job it is to protect the U.S.-Mexican boundary, the "dutiful border patrol ground-pounders" who do the hard work of "running back and forth on foot, in vehicles, in their choppers, weaving back and forth, in and out through the desert trying to protect the border."

However, the former CPA says he is not surprised to find that the U.S. Border Patrol is not happy about his unauthorized project. "I expected that kind of response," he says. "I have stayed away from involving U.S. border patrol. To go to them and ask them for permission to exercise my rights under the First Amendment -- I find that insulting, that I would have to ask law enforcement, [if I may] come down there and publicly display my displeasure with what's happening on our borders."

Gilchrist says he does not need permission from the U.S. government to conduct Operation Minuteman. He and his group plan to spend 30 days along the border, calling attention to the illegal alien invasion problem and getting involved in doing something about it.