August 11, 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Jeff Schwilk
(760) 525-1655
 

San Diego Minutemen Denounce Border Threats and Gunfire

SAN DIEGO, CA – The San Diego Minutemen assist ICE, local law enforcement and local governments in countering a large array of illegal immigration problems in our communities. We have become San Diego County’s largest neighborhood watch with over 600 active members! SDMM has not conducted border watch operations since April 2006.

We have seen the videos posted on the YouTube internet site of an apparent independent border watcher threatening people at the Campo border and then discharging his firearm into the air. The people responsible for that incident and the video apparently work for a small group of border watchers who call themselves “Patriot Point Posse”. They are not Minutemen and have absolutely no affiliation with any Minuteman groups. Jim Gilchrist, leader of the national Minuteman Project, has made it very clear that only good Americans who subscribe to our law-abiding, non-violent code of conduct can call themselves “Minutemen”. We carry legal weapons for protection only from all the numerous and dangerous criminal elements on both sides of the border.

The words and actions in that video are completely outside of our written SOP and we join all Americans in condemning that type of aggressive behavior by anyone at the border. Actual Minutemen belonging to any of the several Minutemen groups operate under strict written guidelines to only “observe and report” any criminal activity at the border including illegal entry into the United States.

SDMM also condemns the violence that comes from the Mexican side of the border aimed at civilian border watchers and Border Patrol. There have been numerous incidents of violent attacks from Mexican throwing large rocks and even shooting at Americans. The Campo border is a known hotbed of Mexican cartel drug and human smuggling activities. Minutemen have been confronted and shot at by heavily armed men in Mexico. That stretch of border is very criminalized on the Mexican side.

The U.S. Border Patrol and the Campo Sheriffs are well aware of these independent border watchers and are constantly observing them for any possible criminal or inappropriate behavior. We trust they will continue to do so.

It is also a well known fact that there has not been one single case of physical abuse or attacks on any illegal aliens on the San Diego County border by Minutemen civilian border watchers in over two years of volunteer operations there.

The only documented physical harassment at the border has been by Enrique Morones and his gang of racist thug “activists” who have periodically and violently confronted the peaceful Minutemen including several assaults on border watchers in 2005 and at our local rallies since then. We condemn such radical violent tactics at the border and at our peaceful protests in our cities.