Minuteman Project founder finds inspiration in Concord

CONCORD -- The air was still yesterday morning, stirred only by the flapping of quacking ducks on the Concord River. Walkers in fleece jackets and sneakers made their way along the dirt paths that run through the graying fields.

And Jim Gilchrist, native New Englander, provocative opponent of illegal immigration, leader of controversial citizen patrols on the US-Mexican border, circled the symbol of resistance for which his group is named.

The founder of the Minuteman Project had traveled from California and made a special stop at the statue Daniel Chester French completed more than a century ago. As he looked up at the Minute Man statue, Gilchrist was full of admiration.

"I feel connected" to the original Minutemen, he said. "What they created stays with us 230 years later -- I would hope. A nation governed under the rule of law, and not at the whim of the mob -- of tens of millions of illegal aliens."

Despite being born and raised in North Providence, Gilchrist had never seen the statue. French's Minute Man stands on the site where the colonists battled British troops on the morning of April 19, 1775, sounding "the shot heard round the world," which marked the start of the American Revolution.

Gilchrist marveled at the statue's condition and at its modest surroundings -- "just a normal dirt path, just like anyplace else."

He was in New England to raise awareness of what he sees as the threat illegal immigration poses to this country, he said, and to meet with former House speaker and possible presidential candidate Newt Gingrich in New Hampshire tomorrow.

Gilchrist's Minuteman Project has been denounced as a racist, vigilante campaign. The project sends groups of men and women to the border, armed with lawn chairs and binoculars, to watch for illegal crossings and to alert Border Patrol officers.

He and his members reject that criticism. They say they fully support legal immigrants, that there are many nonwhite members among their ranks, and that they are merely lookouts on the border, not vigilantes.

Supporters and critics agree that his civilian border patrols helped push the issue of illegal immigration onto the national agenda.

Gazing up at the Minute Man statue yesterday, Gilchrist saw himself and his fellow activists in the bronze patriot.

"Replace that rifle there with a pen and a voice and replace the powder horn with information, and you'll win the war," he said.

The war seemed to be going Gilchrist's way during the summer, when enforcement-only immigration legislation won approval from the House, while a middle-ground proposal stalled. And a slew of states seemed to be headed in the same direction: Gilchrist said he was "all for" Governor Mitt Romney giving state troopers the authority to enforce immigration laws, under an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security announced yesterday .

But Gilchrist has been waging his battle on a steeper incline lately. The November elections gave Democrats control of both houses of Congress, and Gilchrist expects Congress, along with President Bush, will bring the nation closer to "amnesty" for immigrants who are in the country illegally.

And in October, Gilchrist was giving a speech at Columbia University when he was shouted down by protesting students, who rushed the stage.

"They have no business being in a facility of higher education," he said of the students. "These are wackos."

Still, the Columbia controversy raised the profile of his cause, Gilchrist said.

"We got more traction out of that," he told Maine Minuteman Kenneth Roy , who had traveled from Lovell to meet Gilchrist.

Gilchrist, who trained as a journalist at the University of Rhode Island, said he has "never lost my respect, and my love, for the First Amendment." But he said he is distressed that the principle of freedom of speech has lately been applied only to "the meanest thugs with the biggest clubs."

"That is counter to what those people died for," he said, shivering, gesturing toward the Minute Man statue.