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Illegals foes reject nod to Huckabee

By Jerry Seper
December 13, 2007

Minuteman co-founder James Gilchrist's endorsement of presidential candidate Mike Huckabee has spurred a backlash among illegal-immigration opponents who say the former Arkansas governor is soft on immigration enforcement.

"Mike Huckabee is pro-amnesty and favors a path to citizenship for illegal aliens currently in the U.S. that would require a lifting of current penalties," said William Gheen, whose 25,000-member Americans for Legal Immigration sent mass mailings yesterday to more than 300 pro-enforcement groups.

"Huckabee has released an immigration plan that contains the deceptive 'touch back' provision that the pushers of amnesty tried on us in Washington this year," he said. "He wants to trick the nation by having illegal aliens leave for a day to pick up new papers at an office set up across the border and then walk right back."

Mr. Gilchrist, whose Minuteman Project turned out about 800 civilian volunteers to guard the Arizona-Mexico border in April 2005, endorsed Mr. Huckabee in Iowa on Tuesday, saying he supported the former governor's immigration policies. He said Mr. Huckabee's immigration plan was most likely to halt "an invasion" of illegal aliens.

But Chris Simcox, who co-founded the Minuteman Project with Mr. Gilchrist and now heads the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, said no national Minuteman group has endorsed Mr. Huckabee, adding that only "one individual Minuteman has personally endorsed him."

"Jim Gilchrist speaks only for Jim Gilchrist. He does not speak for the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, nor is he nationally representative of most patriots in the Minuteman movement, who under no circumstances could ignore the failed record nor endorse the duplicitous plan recently rolled out by candidate Mike Huckabee," Mr. Simcox said.

His Minuteman organization totals more than 10,000 members and has chapters in all 50 states.

Bob Wright, who heads the Patriots' Border Alliance, another Minuteman splinter group, said although Mr. Gilchrist helped move the issue of illegal entry into the U.S. "to it's rightful place on the national stage," his endorsement of Mr. Huckabee "is at best disturbing."

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