Campo, CA, July 30, 2005--My partner and I hooked up at an exit off the I-8.\r\nI had one idea: to keep migrants at the Mexican border safe from the border\r\nvigilantes. A week ago I had left Campo early, and rogue migrant hunters had\r\nshot two border crossers later that night.<\/p>\r\n
Dusk was turning to darkness by the time we had driven by the ranches and\r\nhouses and around the winding twelve-mile road, and finally past the VFW\r\nbuilding where the James Chase and his California Minutemen were undertaking\r\ntheir California Border Action, carrying arms and hunting migrants for the U.S.\r\nBorder Patrol. A mile up a potholed dirt road striped with rain gullies and we\r\nwere at the counter-protesting Gente Unida camp.<\/p>\r\n
After handing over our first aid supplies for the Desert Angels' glimmering\r\nambulance—they already had twenty gallons of water to disperse across the\r\ndesert that night for border crossers—my partner and I waited for the night’s\r\nplan.<\/p>\r\n
Besides the two shooting casualties, the Minutemen had managed in two weeks\r\nto turn three migrants over to the border patrol, and one of Minuteman was\r\nclaiming someone, perhaps a Mexican national, had put a $25,000 bounty on his\r\nhead. The sheriff had determined to keep Gente Unida and the Minutemen apart for\r\nfear that someone would try to collect, so tonight we would not climb the hill\r\nto stand off the Minutemen at their camp. Last week we had shouted down the\r\nvigilantes, some armed with multiple handguns and waving shotguns at the\r\ncounter-protestors. Tonight would not be like that.<\/p>\r\n
The camp leader drove out to the bluff in front of the camp where the\r\nsheriffs were perched and, after a few minutes of conversation, returned with\r\nthe night’s action: tonight we would be hunting the cazamigrantes. He and a\r\ncamp member climbed into their vehicle and invited my partner and me to follow\r\nin ours. We drove to the Minutemen’s camp and turned into their parking area,\r\nwhere about fifteen Minutemen were gathered. We circled slowly through the lot\r\nand returned to our base.<\/p>\r\n
After reconnoitering with the Gente Unida group, the leader dispersed our\r\ncamp to their positions and the four of us drove back to the Minutemen lot, now\r\nmostly empty. This time, we were led through and out the other side, to Route\r\n94. Sure enough, ahead of us climbing a hill were the taillights of a dozen\r\nMinutemen vehicles making their way to the border. We raced up the hill and fell\r\nin line behind them. About half a mile behind us, a sheriff’s headlights\r\nflashed around the curves and over the hills.<\/p>\r\n
We drove through the dark, twisting, and impassable two-lane roads for twenty\r\nminutes or so, until, ahead of us, two of the Minutemen cars pulled off to the\r\nside, and the sheriff pulled in behind them. We continued with the caravan, the\r\nMinutemen cars slipped in behind us, and we were surrounded. The sheriff’s car\r\nmoved in closer to the Minutemen’s tailing car.<\/p>\r\n
Another twenty minutes went by, winding through streets that in the daylight\r\nwere probably filled with moms chauffeuring kids, ranchers moving stock and\r\nsupplies, the day’s business of a small community that I had only seen at\r\nnight and only through the lens of vigilante occupation. The caravan pulled off\r\nnear the border and stopped, and Minutemen scurried back and forth past our\r\nwindow, reduced to face-to-face conversations in the absence of a cell phone\r\nsignal. Our guide cranked up some Mexican music to alert migrants.\r\nThe caravan pulled out and drove a few miles further until the Minutemen caravan\r\npulled over again, at the center of the sleepy, dark town. A lone resident was\r\nusing the payphone under the wooden awning of an unlit storefront. Minutemen\r\nmaneuvered their vehicles so that they lined the other side of the street, as\r\nwell as posting themselves before and behind us. Sheriffs hung at either end of\r\nthe road, about a hundred yards in each direction from the standoff.<\/p>\r\n
We sat in silence, except for the occasional chirp of a walkie-talkie and the\r\nscuffle of feet on the ashpalt. One woman snapped a few pictures of us; another\r\nshown a spotlight into our vehicles from across the road for a moment or two. I\r\nslipped on a handy pair of sunglasses. Then one by one, the Minutemen vehicles\r\nglided down the road into the darkness. The sheriffs disappeared. We turned and\r\nheaded off in the direction the Minutemen had gone.<\/p>\r\n
Our guide knew the roads, and he knew the Minutemen’s habits. We passed a\r\ncouple of their vehicles along the side of the road and followed others onto\r\ntertiary streets until they turned around and came out, unable to embark on\r\ntheir hunt or unwilling to give away their compatriots’ positions. We stopped\r\nand stretched and admired the night sky, the Milky Way, and stars a dozen layers\r\ndeep. I thought of a news report I’d heard that day, that a tenth planet in\r\nour solar system had been found past Pluto, and pondered that centuries of human\r\neducation that had come down to keeping people with weapons from killing people\r\nwithout weapons, and discovering a planet that had been there since the\r\nbeginning of time.<\/p>\r\n
We turned back onto the main road, and ahead of us was the James Chase’s\r\nvehicle! We took off following Chase for a few miles, until we turned into the\r\nbright lights of a convenience store. As we leaned on our cars munching on\r\nchips, quaffing juice, and comparing notes, Chase pulled in behind us and went\r\ninto the store, perhaps unaware of our presence. Our guide pulled out a bullhorn\r\nwhen Chase emerged and, leaning back on his SUV, denounced Chase to the small\r\ncrowd of locals for his history of domestic violence, for his dismissal from the\r\npostal service, for his expulsion from the regional Minuteman Project, for his\r\nmigrant hunting.<\/p>\r\n
Back in the darkness, we followed Chase’s turns and U-turns for a few more\r\nmiles until he stopped. He walked over to our guide’s vehicle. Leaning into\r\nthe window, still presumably irate at being exposed at the convenience store, he\r\nthreatened to call the sheriffs if our guide didn’t stop stalking him. A few\r\nmiles later we were again surrounded by Minutemen vehicles and, yet again, we\r\npulled off to the side with them. The street was lit only by the amber glow of\r\nparking lights, now without sheriffs in sight. We waited. Finally, the\r\nMinutemen vehicles spun away up the road except for three that stayed behind to\r\nescort us slowly up the street toward camp. The lead car scanned the\r\nroadside with a spotlight, seeming to look for migrants but too far from the\r\nborder to be effective. This time, we were the first to pull off to the side.\r\nThe lead car disappeared into the night, and the vehicles behind us spun out and\r\nfollowed into the darkness.<\/p>\r\n
We went back to our camp. Our guide had figured out where the California\r\nMinutemen would be for the night, and the Buenas Noches Patrol, with their\r\nnoisemakers and other disruptions were dispatched. And we had kept border\r\ncrossers safe from the hunters for four hours.<\/p>\r\n
Next Saturday, August 6, the last weekend of the California Minutemen's\r\npresence on the border, a major counter-demonstration will begin at 4:00 p.m. at\r\nthe Gente Unida camp.<\/p>\r\n\n","contact":"","link":"","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/html","summary":"For two weeks, brave members of Gente Unida and the Desert Angels have pitched their tents along the border to stop the California Minutemen there. On the past two weekends, they've been joined by protestors from throughout Southern California. This weekend, however, they were on their own. This is a report on one night among the protestors at Campo.\r\n\r\nNext Saturday, August 6, the last weekend of the California Minutemen's presence on the border, a major counter-demonstration will begin at 4:00 p.m. at the Gente Unida camp to say goodbye to the California Minutemen.","numcomment":3,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/","filesize":null,"article_url":"\/news\/2005\/07\/133807.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[{"id":133953,"heading":"Cazamigrantes (follow-up)","article":"\r\nThe desert air near Campo is hot \u2013 even at night - and the California Minutemen were feeling the heat Saturday night. \r\n\r\nFor four hours two cars of protestors outfoxed, outmaneuvered and outflanked the Minutemen, preventing them from hunting the migrant peoples they hate. That\u2019s all it took.\r\n\r\nA dozen cars \u2013 at least 25 Minutemen - were pinned in during the long running chase. \r\n\r\nThe California Minutemen have been rendered remarkably ineffective for weeks in their campaign on the border. With only one week remaining they can account for only three arrests of migrants \u2013 including a couple \u201cgiven a ride\u201d \u2013 illegally \u2013 by Minuteman leader Jim Chase.\r\n\r\nBut protestors Saturday night were motivated by the knowledge that two other migrants had been shot on the border near Campo a week before \u2013 shootings Chase attributed to so-called \u201crogue\u201d Minutemen. \r\n\r\nOn this night four unarmed people would stop six times their number from committing similar attempted murders, splitting the caravans of armed migrant hunters, confounding their leaders, and rushing thru the desert\u2019s dark, sharp-curved, winding roads in twisting chases, switches and back to back U turns.\r\n\r\nThe chase was punctuated by tense periods of waiting. Parked end to end at the shoulder of the road with the very caravans they were disrupting, the protestors scorched the air with Mexican music and bullhorns while the migrant hunters stalked back and forth, shining spotlights and high-beams at the protestors as their leaders conferred on how they might at last elude the hunters who were hunting them \u2013 who dared to hunt those who thought themselves the hunters.\r\n\r\nThe protestors knew that any moment might bring a rifle wielding racist to their car window, and the racist\u2019s leaders knew they couldn\u2019t proceed to make camp or hunt living human beings with the protestors right along side them \u2013 they knew the noise from the protestors would be endless, that no migrant would come within hundreds of yards of the racket, and that all their efforts would be for nothing.\r\n\r\nTo make matters worse, no doubt, from the Minutemen standpoint, the protestors had seemed able to predict their movements from the beginning. They had followed the Minuteman leadership into their main base of operations, left, then returned as if by magic just as the Minuteman caravan was pulling out \u2013 simply joining in at the end of the line, apparently unnoticed for some miles by anyone other than the sheriffs who trailed the whole group.\r\n\r\nSuch seeming prescience on the part of the protestors would mark the night. Forced at last to attempt a diversion, Chase pulled out alone on the two-lane desert highway with his enemies hot on his trail, laughing and groaning about the \u201cChase scene.\u201d\r\n\r\nBut Chase wasn\u2019t laughing. He couldn\u2019t elude his pursuers and he couldn\u2019t divert them long enough to pull his tattered caravan back together and get it underway. Some five cars ended up at a lone convenience store near highway 8, drawn as if by a magnet, the way animals in the are drawn to water, one species drinking next to another.\r\n\r\nBut for Chase it was no pastoral scene. Protestors used their bullhorn in the parking lot to denounce and scorn him even as he stopped to drink. He could know no peace.\r\n\r\nFinally, Chase, ever quick on the uptake, figured out a tactic to isolate the protestors from his caravan \u2013 something the protestors had predicted hours before had finally occurred to him.\r\n","author":"Pardner","parent_id":133807,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2005-08-01 14:42:30","modified":"2013-11-11 00:35:10","fileurl":""},{"id":134089,"heading":"Is this on the best sellers list yet?","article":"Nice piece of fiction, one day you will realize that the people of California will have it's State back, and our laws obeyed. \r\n\r\nRomanticizing the issue is great for those with third grade education\u2019s or high school drop outs.\r\n\r\nWe continue to live in the 21 first century, and no matter how hard you try to re-write the events, and change the facts, you are still veiwed as nothing more than assualting American Citizens, who are following the laws of this State and Nation.\r\n\r\nCaza migrante numero uno.","author":"Fed Up","parent_id":133807,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2005-08-03 00:45:28","modified":"2013-11-11 00:35:15","fileurl":""},{"id":134103,"heading":"Mr","article":"Isn't it illegal to aid and abet someone crossing the border illegally? Isn't that a crime as well??\r\nIt sort of sounds to me that as you were 'running interference' for the illeagle aliens, you would have been breaking the law as well. Just curious as to anyone ever confronted your group with that possibilty...not asking for a fight or angry words, just knowledge and understanding.\r\nThanks\r\n\r\n","author":"Daniel","parent_id":133807,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2005-08-03 05:00:24","modified":"2005-08-03 05:00:24","fileurl":""}]}