Newsday (New York)
February 17, 2003 Monday
Pride & Prejudice On Desert Border
By Tina Susman. STAFF CORRESPONDENT
Tombstone, Ariz. - As he raises his children in the rugged desert straddling the U.S.-Mexico border, Ray Bouton drills two rules of survival into them: "Watch out for rattlesnakes and Mexicans."
It says something about his fellow ranchers' attitudes that Bouton, his wind-burned face and pale blue eyes shaded by a black Stetson, proclaimed this proudly and with no pretense at political correctness as he stood on his ranch about a week ago at the foot of the snow-speckled Huachuca Mountains.
It says something about fellow ranchers' attitudes as well that, as he spoke, about a dozen like-minded people were gathered at the ranch for a gun course that will allow them to carry concealed weapons and, if they choose, join civilian militias scanning the border for illegal crossers.
"It's an invasion," said Chris Simcox, leader of the newest such group, the Tombstone-based Civil Homeland Defense, which says it is doing what the government has exhorted the nation to do since 9/11: be extra-vigilant about security. "There's too much crime coming over that border, and Americans are being victimized."
To critics, the rise of such groups - Simcox's is the third in southeastern Arizona - is an ugly and dangerous offshoot of 9/11, one that has racists arming themselves in the name of homeland security and drumming up support by preying on fears of terrorism.
"It has intensified incredibly since 9/11. They'll blame immigrants for anything," said Devin Burghart of the Chicago-based Center for New Community, which tracks anti-immigration groups' activities.
Based on their beliefs, there are few differences between the militias and large, well-organized hate groups such as David Duke's National Organization for European American Rights, Burghart said. One militia, Glenn Spencer's American Border Patrol, is listed as a hate group by the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center, which cites among other things the patrol's claim that Mexico is plotting to take over the southwestern United States.
Arizona has become "ground zero" in the anti-immigrant movement because of its traditionally conservative politics, its proximity to Mexico and the porous state of the international frontier as it cuts through the vast, sparsely populated desert, Burghart said. According to the U.S. Border Patrol, about 50,000 people were caught crossing illegally in the Tucson Sector, a 15,000-square-mile area that stretches from the Texas border to western Arizona, between October and December of last year. No one knows how many crossed without being caught.
Militia leaders say such numbers prove the 9,300 federal agents covering the U.S.-Mexico frontier can't do the job. The biggest of these militias is Ranch Rescue, which claims 250 volunteers in several states and is most active in Arizona, Texas, California and New Mexico. Spencer's patrol claims 80 members and has a Web site that offers real-time video of its patrols.
But the group garnering the most attention is Simcox's, by virtue of its origins in this famous Wild West town and of Simcox's openness to media coverage. In fact, Simcox announced his group's formation in October on the front page of the Tombstone Tumbleweed, the newspaper he bought last year after moving here from Los Angeles.
"We're the politically correct, kinder, gentler way of defending the borders," said Simcox, a former teacher. Simcox likens Civil Homeland Defense to a "neighborhood watch" program.
"Our goal is to be an obvious presence on the border and to deter anyone from coming across it - terrorists, drug dealers and illegal immigrants," he said, denying, as do other militia leaders, any racial motivation.
At the very least, though, his conspiracy-laced rhetoric suggests a fierce disdain for outsiders, who he says have filled classrooms with their tuberculosis-infected children, taken jobs from Americans and led to a state of lawlessness near the border. Mexican drug cartels, he says, have paid off politicians to ignore the issue.
Dressed in civilian clothes, members of Simcox's group, who appear to number no more than a few judging from recent patrols, cruise the border region most weekend mornings and evenings, concentrating on dirt roads that cut through expanses of mesquite and ranchland. When they encounter "illegals," Simcox said, group members do not forcibly detain them but instead alert the U.S. Border Patrol to their location.
A walk through Tombstone, a tourist stopover of 1,500 people dominated by souvenir shops, bed-and-breakfast inns and cafes, provides a good idea of the townspeople's views of Simcox, 42. Not since Wyatt Earp rode into town in 1879, setting the stage for the infamous shoot-out at the OK Corral two years later, has a newcomer made such a splash. "Weirdo," "racist," "egomaniac," "idiot" and "over the top" are a few of the adjectives residents toss out, often with an amused shake of the head.
It's just such terms that worry people like Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, who says they are indicators of dangerous fanaticism. "I think he's a lunatic. At the same time, I think he's pouring more gasoline into a dangerous fire," said Potok, echoing human rights groups' worries that militia members will get carried away and start gunning down migrants in the desert, if they haven't already.
While no militia groups have been accused of crimes against migrants, over the past few years several migrants have been found dead for unexplained reasons and others are known to have been murdered. No arrests have been made. The U.S. Border Patrol says Mexican drug dealers and human smugglers are to blame. Human rights groups say the militias should be investigated for possible crimes against migrants.
"They're like little boys playing cowboys and Indians," said Burt Devere, a sixth-generation Tombstone native whose ranch is in the footpath of illegals heading for the highway out of town. Devere rejects Simcox's claims that illegal migrants are burgling homes, damaging property and freeing livestock by cutting barbed-wire fences as they cross private land. "We know it's not the Mexicans, but the Mexicans get blamed for it because they're not here to defend themselves."
Devere and his wife, Dorothy, say the real problem is Border Patrol agents and "local yokels" who rampage through private property in all-terrain vehicles, bust down fences, let livestock loose onto highways and use water towers for target practice. "Migrants have always come through here. If we didn't have them, who'd do the menial labor the Americans won't do?" said Devere, who cordially waves at the migrants he sees crossing his land.
Simcox, though, says most people support his idea of using tanks and soldiers to close the U.S.-Mexico border. They're simply scared to admit it, said Simcox, who claims to have had eight death threats as a result of his activities and who frequently wears a bulletproof vest under his shirt.
And despite his many critics - who include the mayor, the head of the chamber of commerce, and a host of human rights groups - Simcox has admirers, even among those who don't relish the thought of civilians taking up arms. They include Roger Remsik, the owner of the Sagebrush Inn in Tombstone, who figures this isolated region would be attractive to terrorists looking for a good place to sneak into the country.
"These are loose borders. This is where they should be stopping them, and this is where I agree with Chris doing it his way," Remsik said. "But Chris shouldn't have to do it. The federal government should be doing it."
The Border Patrol has little to say about the militias but denies allegations it is not doing its job. Total apprehensions dropped from 1.676 million in 2000 to 1.266 million in 2001 and 955,310 last year, said spokesman Mario Villarreal, attributing the decrease to everything from better vigilance after Sept. 11 to economic conditions on both sides of the border. "We discourage private parties from taking matters into their own hands," he said.
Perhaps one reason the Border Patrol has little to say about the militias is because some former Border Patrol agents support them. American Border Patrol's members, for example, include two retired Border Patrol agents. In addition, Arizona legislators this month introduced House Bill 2440, which would amount to the state's seal of approval to militias. It calls for creation of an armed, civilian volunteer organization called the Border Area Reserves, composed of U.S. citizens who would do exactly what Simcox and his followers are doing.
Bouton, 48, whose ranch is about a mile from the border, says opponents of such ideas don't know what it's like living here. He says he has survived one shoot-out with Mexican bandits and now picks up his pistol just to walk across his yard. He sleeps with a gun beside him, and while he supports Simcox's desire to close the border, he won't patrol with Civil Homeland Defense because he feels its rules on carrying weapons - they must be concealed and drawn only in self-defense - put members at too much of a disadvantage.
"Down here I live by the gun, and that's the only way you can live down here," Bouton said. "I won't go to that border unless I've got 150 rounds of ammunition on me."
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