On border, volunteers keep sleepy eyes sharp
NACO, Ariz. -- After a blitz of media attention and a boisterous kick-off rally, the ''Minuteman Project" mustered only a few isolated outposts of border-scanning volunteers during its first official overnight shift yesterday.
Instead of bands of ''minutemen" stationed every few hundred yards across 23 miles, as organizers had hoped, the only volunteers in the porous, cactus-dotted border near here consisted of 11 men, some armed and many visibly nervous. A group of undetermined size was stationed more than 15 miles to the west, volunteers said.
''I didn't want to do the night shift, but I said someone's got to do it," said Steven J. Mueller, 40, a landscape photographer from Ontario, Calif.
Facing a dilapidated barbed-wire fence that marked the Mexican border only 20 yards away, the group used night-vision goggles to survey the darkness of the Sonora desert, through which hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants cross into the United States each year.
Temperatures dipped into the 30s on a moonless night, the group lost radio communication with its headquarters, and voices were raised in alarm when the men gathered to discuss a rumor that members of the ruthless Salvadoran MS-13 gang might attack them that night.
''I want lights on these people if we see them," said Darrel Wood, 44, of Price, Utah, who took control of what had turned into a panicky gathering. ''You guys are all smart men. I want to hear suggestions."
Billy, a big Texas man who did not provide his last name, said, ''This ain't no testosterone test. If somebody wants to go home, you just go."
No one left and the attack never occurred on a quiet night when no undocumented immigrants approached the fence near these self-described Minutemen. The only sounds the group heard in the desert were the howling of coyotes and the rumbling tires of US Border Patrol vehicles on surveillance runs.
The ''minutemen" and the Border Patrol occasionally acknowledged each other with waves, but the groups kept their distance in this hodgepodge of federal, state, and privately owned land. Officials from the Border Patrol, which has called the group a hindrance, said group members had asked for landowners' permission to set up observation posts.
Critics of the effort fear the group members will take the law into their own hands and turn to violence. So far, a spokesman with the Cochise County Sheriff's Office said there have been no reports of violence.
On Monday, 145 arrests of illegal immigrants were recorded by the Border Patrol in the Naco sector, said Charles Griffin, an agency spokesman in Tucson. Griffin said that the agency had noticed fewer attempted crossings recently, which he said might be attributed to an ongoing operation by Mexican police against drug smuggling and border crossings by undocumented immigrants.
A Mexican government official confirmed that Mexican municipal and federal police, as well as a special antidrug and illegal immigration squad, were conducting sweeps near the Arizona border.
Despite the small numbers in the desert overnight, group officials are hailing the publicity that has been generated against what they perceive as dangerously inadequate border protection.
''The project is already a huge success because all the world is watching," said Mike McGarry, a Minuteman Project spokesman.
About 500 volunteers have registered and have been in the field, said McGarry, who added that he expects 1,000 people to participate at some point during the monthlong project. Organizers said 200 volunteers took up positions Monday, the vast majority during the day. Some ''minutemen" set up lawn chairs and applied sunscreen as they watched the border.
''I feel this is one of the most important things I've done in my life," Tim Donnelly, 38, of Twin Peaks, Calif., said early yesterday. As he stood near his pickup truck, Donnelly wore a Colt .45 handgun strapped in a holster.
Wood, who said he served in the Army Special Forces, intended to return to his post early this morning. However, he sees lonely duty on the overnight shift, when the vast majority of attempted crossings occur.
''I think we'll struggle through the next month. No one wants to be out here," Wood said.
