The Minutemen Are Coming

Residents of South Texas, watch out – the civilian border patrol denounced by President Bush as “vigilantes” has plans to start patrolling the Texas border with Mexico in October. However, the Minutemen are a little apprehensive, worried that much of the land along the Rio Grande is privately-owned or else urbanized, and that land owners and city-dwellers will not take kindly to their armed presence. The vigilantes are also concerned about violent drug cartels who frequent the region, though their leader, Chris Simcox, has suggested that they might try to disrupt the drug trade.

According to the Houston Chronicle, Houston members of the Minutemen are enthusiastic, but people actually living on the border are less so: “I think the Minutemen would probably create more problems than they would solve,” says the mayor of Brownsville, Eddie Treviño Jr.

Simcox hopes to find ranchers who will welcome the Minutemen, but they might think twice before casting their lot with vigilantes. In 2003, a similar group, Ranch Rescue, conducted private patrols in South Texas. Two Salvadorans and four Mexicans detained by the paramilitary group sued Ranch Rescue and a landowner for false imprisonment, assault, armed robbery, and making death threats; the lawsuit was settled out of court, and an assault charge against a vigilante for pistol-whipping one of the Salvadorans resulted in a hung jury.