Volunteers set to monitor Arizona border crossings

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A retired California businessman has 240 volunteers ready for a 30-day aerial and ground surveillance campaign on the Arizona-Mexico border to highlight what he calls the government's failure to control illegal immigration.

But law enforcement authorities warn they may be putting themselves in danger.

James Gilchrist, a combat-wounded U.S. Marine and Vietnam veteran, said the "Minuteman Project" will field volunteers from 37 states, many of them ex-military and law enforcement personnel, to man observation posts and a communications center, along with seven pilots from Arizona who will provide aerial surveillance.

Billed as "Americans doing the job Congress won't do," the project -- which will begin April 1 -- is intended to showcase inadequate border- and immigration-enforcement policies by the U.S. government, Mr. Gilchrist said.

"We hope to bring enough attention also that we can send a message to our leaders in Washington, D.C., that this is our country, too," he said. "This border issue is about all 50 states, not just Arizona or Texas. It's about our Constitution and how it applies to all of us.

"We're looking for this nation to again be guided by the rule of law, not a nation ruled by an endless mob of illegal aliens streaming across our borders like a tsunami, a culture shock that someday -- perhaps soon -- we will have neither the manpower nor the will to stop," he said.

Despite a Web page that refers to the Minuteman Project as a "blocking force against entry into the U.S. by illegal aliens," Mr. Gilchrist said there are no plans to detain or confront the aliens. He said the volunteers, who will live in tents or recreational vehicles along the border, will seek only to spot them with binoculars, telescopes and night-vision equipment as they enter the United States and report their position to the Border Patrol.

U.S. Border Patrol Chief Michael Nicely, who heads the Tucson, Ariz., sector, is concerned about their safety, noting that the U.S.-Mexico border is "a dangerous environment even under the best of circumstances." He said well-equipped and highly trained law-enforcement personnel have found the border to be a "hazardous place."

"We are always concerned about civilians who put themselves in danger," Chief Nicely said. "People certainly have the right to demonstrate to make a political point, and we will not interfere with that, but they are absolutely not equipped to deal with the border environment.

"It doesn't take a lot of imagination to picture what could happen," he said, noting that alien smugglers in the area often are armed and have not hesitated to confront Border Patrol personnel. "It could be a very [volatile] situation, one that reasonable people ought to avoid."