This is an archive of the former website of the Maoist Internationalist Movement, which was run by the now defunct Maoist Internationalist Party - Amerika. The MIM now consists of many independent cells, many of which have their own indendendent organs both online and off. MIM(Prisons) serves these documents as a service to and reference for the anti-imperialist movement worldwide.
Maoist Internationalist Movement

Minuteman Project ignores its own Standard Operating Procedure

By a contributor April 3, 2005

Although it claimed it would not engage any alleged illegal immigrant, the Minuteman Project "handed" a Guatemalan migrant over to Border Patrol according to Reuters.(1) This seems to directly conflict with its own Standard Operation Procedure, which prohibits any "contact" or "engagement."(2) A Minuteman Project spokespersyn claims the migrant just walked into a Minuteman Project base camp at a Bible college in Palominas, probably the Miracle Valley Bible College & Seminary based on another news story.(3) Instead of giving the migrant enough food and water to continue on his trip, the Minuteman Project "handed" him over to the u.$. Border Patrol.

As "Settler vigilantes (re-)converge on the Arizona-Sonora border" on MIM's Web site predicted it would, the Minuteman Project has apparently coerced a migrant worker and an alleged illegal immigrant. This was almost inevitable given Minuteman Project founder Chris Simcox's Civil Homeland Defense Corps' history of using force, rather than just reporting sightings of "illegal immigrants" to the Border Patrol. The Standard Operating Procedure is a piece of rhetoric and public relations maneuvering.

By portraying the rule of no contact and no engagement as a matter of restraint in the case of the Minuteman Project, Chris Simcox actually paves the way for the use of force. He even suggests the Minuteman Project will be used as a recruiting event for future missions that do use force, so the reasons Simcox gives for not using force in the particular Minuteman Project come off as empty-sounding:

"Experienced volunteers of Civil Homeland Defense (CHD) will be mentoring groups of novice border watchers who are here for the first time. CHD volunteers will consult, guide and share experience with new volunteers. CHD volunteers will continue to work in every way possible that will support the mission. Future efforts will likely involve the tracking and containment of groups of people who have entered our country illegally. For this mission, you will resist in every way confronting or attempting to make contact with illegals."(2)

Simcox's Civil Homeland Defense Corps, often carrying firearms, has deliberately terrorized undocumented migrant proletarians:

"Rios said she's afraid of the civilian patrols because she read in Mexican newspapers that they'll behave as they please. . . . In particular, she mentioned the Civil Homeland Defense, a new group founded by Chris Simcox, publisher of the Tombstone Tumbleweed. . . . Simcox couldn't be happier that word is spreading among Mexicans hoping to cross. . . . 'It's working already because that means they're not going to come across,' he said. 'That will give our government time to mobilize the troops.' "(4)
Simcox views his "patrol" projects as operating in tandem with existing government-sanctioned repression of undocumented migrant proletarians and fully expects the government to further militarize the u.$.-Mexico border.

MIM is aware of groups that leave water at stations in the desert, which are supposedly not monitored by anyone for migrant activity, and they are not seeking to "patrol" the border even though many of these groups are church-organized. Neither the Minuteman Project nor the Civil Homeland Defense Corps are one of these philanthropic groups. The Minuteman Project is deeply reactionary. It has reactionary aims and consequences. Its pretense of caring for migrants is fake. Mike Kane has photographic evidence of Civil Homeland Defense volunteers providing migrants with food and water and then "peacefully" surrounding "the immigrants and wait[ing] for Border Patrol authorities to arrive."(5) In fact, "patrol" groups have in the past searched for water supplies with the intent of at least surveilling the sites for migrants, if not removing the supplies. The settler pigs and pig-wannabes are hostile to undocumented migrant proletarians, as well as Aztlan and First Nations' territory that they encroach on while "patrolling" for undocumented migrants.

Notes:

1. "Migrant Stumbles Into U.S. Militia 'Hornet's Nest'," April 3, 2005, http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=8070640

2. Chris Simcox, "Standard Operating Procedure for Minuteman Project," http://www.minutemanproject.com/SOP.html

3. Edward Sifuentes, "Border watch group, human rights activists arrive for monthlong patrol," http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2005/04/01/news/top_stories/0_16_494_1_05.prt

4. "Would-be crossers fear vigilante groups," Associated Press, December 9, 2002

5. Mike Kane, "Honorable Mention," http://www.cpoy.org/59/winimgdisp.php?cat=12&place=4