Posted on 07/16/2005 3:54:43 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
CAMPO, Calif. (AP) - Volunteers patrolled remote mountains outside San Diego for human traffickers and drug smugglers Saturday, launching a campaign modeled after an effort in the Arizona desert to draw attention to the nation's porous border with Mexico.
Jim Chase, a former Arizona Minuteman volunteer who cut ties with that group's leadership, is leading California Border Watch, which mobilized Saturday to patrol a 26-mile rural stretch of rolling hills from Jacumba to Tecate through Aug. 7.
Chase, a retired postal worker from Oceanside, said he and others will carry guns for self-defense but will not initiate attacks.
"The guns are for one reason - to keep my people alive," he said in an interview Friday.
About 30 volunteers came out Saturday to join the patrol, Chase said. A loud group of protesters, however, outnumbered the volunteers and Chase temporarily drove away from the border in the afternoon to chants of "racists go home."
Earlier this week, the Web site for Chase's group urged volunteers to bring baseball bats, mace, pepper spray and machetes. Chase said he removed those items after the U.S. Border Patrol expressed concern.
The group has set up headquarters outside the Veterans of Foreign Wars post in Campo, an unincorporated mountain village of about 1,200 people located about a mile north of the Mexican border and 40 miles east of San Diego.
A group of about 100 migrant activists staged a rally Saturday against the volunteer patrol, said Stan Isham, a supervisory border patrol agent. The rally was civil and no problems were reported, Isham said.
Rich Macgurn, a human rights activist with Gente Unida (People United), said the number of patrol volunteers was "pretty scarce" and that protesters had only spotted a few of them.
The Border Patrol was setting up a command post outside its Campo station, and San Diego Sheriff Bill Kolender said deputies would closely monitor the area.
"We will not tolerate any kind of hate crimes, we will not tolerate any violations of the law, and we will see to it that the Border Patrol is able to do their job in a safe manner," Kolender said.
Chase said he expected 100 and 200 volunteers would join the patrol throughout the three-week vigil.
Volunteers will call the Border Patrol if they spot illegal border crossers, Chase said. He won't chase illegal immigrants but said others might.
"If somebody's stupid enough to do it, I'm not going to stop them," he said.
Chase, who turned 58 Saturday, has been feuding with other activists organizing civilian patrols in an effort to turn public attention to illegal immigration. The campaigns are modeled after patrols in Arizona that garnered international attention and criticism on both sides of the border in April.
Chase has traded harsh words with Andy Ramirez, whose Chino-based Friends of the Border Patrol plans a civilian patrol in San Diego County in September. He also cut ties with Minuteman co-founder Chris Simcox of Arizona, who hopes to organize a patrol along the southern U.S. border in October.
I wish these border patrol groups would get together and come up with a set of common procedures. Someone is going to do something stupid and hurt them all.
This type foolishness certainly doesn't help win elections. But then many conservatives in California don't care about winning.
And some people are cowards unwilling to stand up to a party that screws them every time.
And just what is it that qualifies you to even mention California conservatives, something a Texas Big Tent RINO/Liberal/Moderate would know absolutely nothing about?
We'll take care of California. You keep on telling us all how lovely everything is in Houston where you're up to your ass in illegals and pretending to love it.
That would've been more to my liking, but I guess some egos got in the way.
Someone is going to do something stupid and hurt them all.
I hope not, however, Jim (the retired postal worker) Chase does seem like he's wound a little too tight.
You obey your politburo but I won't.
BTTT
When? How long has it been since California voted for a Republican Presidential candidate or sent a Republican to the U.S. Senate?
If it were just your own liberal state government at stake most of us wouldn't care, but the ineptness of the California Republicans impacts Washington and thus all Americans as well.
We've previously determined that you're no conservative. You know, there's your pro-illegal alien reputation and continual flacking on FR that keeps interfering with such claims on your part. If you persist in claiming to be a conservative, I suppose we'll just have to keep refuting it.
And here we all thought you were actually proud to be a Big Tent RINO/Liberal/Moderate...
If you Big Tent RINOs/Liberal/Moderates would stop your hispandering long enough to notice the dwindling GOP conservative contingent, you might wake up and actally accomplish something other than continually electing RINOs.
"...but the ineptness of the California Republicans impacts Washington and thus all Americans as well."
I find your concerns touching, but misplaced. About all you Texas RINOs can claim is having sent LBJ to the White House and, now, two Bushes. You want to try persuading us that any of them is conservative?
* crickets *
I didn't think so.
Stick to screwing up Houston and Texas, if the conservatives down there can't do anything with you.
Also in the population centers are liberals, queers and other left wing idiots who round out the Dem voting roster. I also suspect a substantial amount of voter fraud in the blue counties but can't prove it.
All of this has nothing to do with wanting to stop ILLEGAL immigration and won't keep real conservatives from voting for candidates that are strong for controlling our borders. What you are doing with this post is what you do all the time: Trying to turn the topic away from the ILLEGAL aliens subject and keep people arguing about trivial sh**.
People are fed up with ILLEGALS and the next person to run on that platform will win in most states. ILLEGALS are just that and harmful to the country and people like you are harmful to our country also. I strongly suspect you are a business owner that exploits ILLEGALS for your own gain or you have a number of relatives who wish to swin across the river. I think the business man guess is the correct one.
Wrong, we're getting stronger every day.
Are you starting that same old third party absurdity that we had to suffer through four years ago?
It still seems impossible that so many FReepers really believed that Buchanan was going to win the election up until the very day of the election. They told us that the polls were all wrong because they didn't poll all the new Buchanan voters who had signed up, that Buchanan voters were afraid to admit it for rear of being thought to be racists, that Buchanan voters didn't have phones, refused to answer polls, were trying to make Republicans over confident, etc....
After Buchanan got less than half of one percent of the vote they still were in denial and apparently still are today.
Just thought you'd appreciate a little corrective editing here. As I mentioned earlier, you're sure as hell not a loyal American conservative. Not with your pro-illegal alien record.
Again, nothing but insults. It must be frustrating not to be able to verbalize a substantive idea.
Don't blame the true conservatives around here.
PING
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