Borderline (page 3 of 5)

A Scary History

Back in the desert outside Tucson, two-way radios crackle as the Minutemen relay information to their communication center, where calls will go out to the Border Patrol. Members of the group speculate that the six who surrendered might be a sacrifice group. Human smugglers -- who charge anywhere from $1,500 to $3,000 per person -- have earned their nickname: coyotes. Minutemen speak of them with alternating admiration and disgust. Coyotes know every inch of this terrain, can lead a group along imperceptible trails on the blackest of nights, yet are said to rob their clients, to rape the women, to abandon them in the desert. The six now sitting slumped in the roadway either are completely spent from four nights of desert travel or were ordered by the coyote to surrender so the rest of the group could escape -- or both.

One of the migrants looks toward the blinding lights. "Agua," he says. "Por favor. Agua."

None of the Minutemen have said a word to the Mexicans. No guns have been drawn, and there has been no physical contact. Then a Minuteman steps forward and sets a bottle of water down. "Gracias," the young man says. There is no response.

Simcox insists that his group, which claims to have recruited 4,000 supporters, is not a militia. He also eschews the vigilante label, pointing out that a vigilante is someone who takes the law into his own hands. "We simply observe and report," he says. "We're the world's biggest neighborhood watch."

But according to a 2005 report by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which monitors hate groups and extremists, in its early days the MCDC was more hands-on. The group was originally called Civil Homeland Defense and referred to itself with such descriptors as vigilante and militia, according to the report. Simcox apparently once boasted that his group had captured a total of 5,000 Latino migrants. Mark Potok, a staff director with SPLC, insists that MCDC follows in the tradition of other, more violent and racist civilian border patrols -- including the Ku Klux Klan. "This is the latest outgrowth of a long history of American vigilantism," Potok says, "and it's a scary history."

Simcox bristles at such accusations, arguing that he was the perfect person to start the MCDC because, he says, "I'm squeaky clean." He points out that he was once married to a black woman, is the father of a biracial son, and was the head of the diversity committee at the California school where he taught. Furthermore, Simcox says, potential MCDC members must pay $50 to cover background screenings for membership in racist organizations -- and any Minuteman spouting racist rhetoric is sent home from patrols. "This is the last place those people want to be," he says, "because that's not our message."

•