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 News from Around the Americas | June 2006 
Minuteman Leader Found New Calling After 9/11 Attacks
 Dennis Wagner - Arizona Republic
| | Chris Simcox, president of the Minutemen Civil Defense Corps., concedes that his group's efforts hardly deter illegal immigration. (David Kadlubowski/Arizona Republic) |
Three Points, Ariz. - Chris Simcox throws supplies into his car outside a southern Arizona ranch house and barks an order: "Follow me."
He has just completed another daylong patrol with his Minuteman volunteers near the windblown Mexican line, searching for undocumented immigrants and announcing that his group will build a border wall if President Bush won't.
Now, the 45-year-old in jeans and a purple T-shirt is late for a live appearance on Hannity & Colmes, the Fox Channel's conservative talk show. He waves to a unit of volunteers heading for the desert with binoculars and side arms, then hits the road to Nogales, chomping a stogie and revving his Jeep at nearly 90 mph.
Such is the frenetic life of a former schoolteacher who has emerged as a lightning rod in the debate over illegal immigration. Since April 2005, when Simcox helped organize the first Minuteman Project, he has become a hero to those frustrated with U.S. policies that have allowed millions to enter the country illegally, have failed to remove violators and have taken virtually no action against employers who hire undocumented immigrants.
Simcox concedes that his group's patrols, fence projects and cross-country caravans hardly deter illegal immigration. Rather, he says, they are a part of a propaganda campaign to shame political leaders.
The strategy, he believes, is working: Last month, President Bush answered the Minuteman leader's longtime demand to post National Guard troops along America's 2,000-mile border with Mexico. And, this week, he announced support of a Senate provision that would fortify 370 miles of the line with a wall.
"We feel that's a victory," Simcox says. "At least the president is making moves to do something. But it's not nearly enough. I think it's political placating and . . . pandering for votes."
That kind of rhetoric has made Simcox a darling of right-wing media and a nemesis to immigrant rights advocates.
Raul Yzaguirre, former chief executive at National Council of La Raza and now executive director for a civil rights center at Arizona State University, describes the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps as "part of a hate-mongering group from the lunatic fringe."
U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., among the nation's most zealous anti-immigration politicians, says Simcox is a stirring example of citizen action: "I believe much of the success of our movement is a result of . . . the Minuteman Project. I give him enormous credit for what he has done."
Will Marriott, a 59-year-old Phoenix medical-equipment salesman who has spent three years with Simcox, says his friend is relentless.
"Chris focuses intently," Marriott says. "That's the power of his approach. He brings everyone together. . . . (And) he's not racist. I have never heard a single racist comment from him."
The player
Christopher Allen Simcox does not seem to fit a stereotype.
At a Kentucky Fried Chicken near the border, he spills out a life story in rushed snippets: The son of a machinist and a cardiac-care nurse, Simcox spent his childhood shifting between households of divorced parents. His father, Paul, is a "Goldwater-type conservative" who raises the Stars and Stripes outside his Moline, Ill., home at 6 each morning and brags about European forefathers who waited five years in Canada before they could enter the United States.
"We came to this country legally," the elder Simcox stresses.
Chris Simcox says his personal politics always have been a combination of "rock-solid conservative values" and humanitarian ideals born of his admiration for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. "The civil rights movement was a major part of my life growing up in the South," he says. "I've always felt that bigotry and discrimination were unacceptable."
After graduating from a Kentucky high school in 1978, Simcox says, he tried out for a Cincinnati Reds minor league team, got cut and turned to his second passion: playing drums for a series of bands.
In 1986, he moved to Los Angeles with his wife. Simcox soured on the Hollywood music scene and set out on a new career track, earning a degree in early education from Pacific Oaks College in Pasadena. His internship was at "a very bad high school in South Central LA, in the middle of Bloods-and-Crips warfare."
He switched to the affluent, private Wildwood Elementary School, teaching for the next 13 years before becoming a private tutor. Simcox says he watched LA schools be overwhelmed by immigrant students who could not speak English and by Hispanic gangs.
His experiences spawned a deep concern about America's future. "I fought for civil rights my entire life," he says. "I was the kid who stood up for Black kids and got my nose bloodied. . . . My second wife is Black. My son is biracial. So race plays nothing in this issue."
Coupled with the unease about immigration, Simcox says, was a growing fear of terrorism: "You could see it coming. And then September 11 hit, and that was it."
Turning point
Immediately afterward, he made phone calls recorded by ex-wife Kim Dunbar. According to transcripts filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, Simcox talked about stockpiling firearms. Court records describe a message left two days after the attacks: "I purchased another gun. I have more than a few weapons, and I plan on teaching my son how to use them. I will no longer trust anyone in this country. My life has changed forever." Dunbar sought sole custody and got it. His students quit as word spread about his apocalyptic diatribes.
With no more family or job, Simcox made a clean break. It began with a weeklong trip to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument on the southern Arizona border. There, Simcox says, he watched undocumented immigrants and smugglers stream across from Mexico.
"At that moment, it clicked," he says. "The borders were wide open. It shouldn't take a kindergarten teacher to figure out that terrorists could come through."
Simcox tried to join the Border Patrol but was turned down because of his age. Then began a 40-day retreat in the desert. During a visit to Tombstone, he found work as a cowpoke in mock gunfights. He quit after a few days and got a job as an assistant editor at the Tombstone Tumbleweed. In early 2002, he cashed in a retirement fund, bought the paper for $60,000, and transformed it into a chronicle on illegal immigration. (Sample headline: "Enough is enough! A public call to arms! Citizens border patrol militia now forming!")
A handful of gun-toting volunteers signed up, and Simcox began leading missions under his Civil Homeland Defense banner.
At one point, Simcox was arrested by a ranger at Coronado National Monument for possession of a firearm in a federal park. Convicted for a misdemeanor weapons violation, he was sentenced to probation.
In July 2004, Simcox wrote a Tumbleweed article asserting that Border Patrol agents in Arizona had captured two large groups of Arabic-speaking undocumented immigrants, more than 75 in all. A Border Patrol spokesman scoffed at the tale. In April 2005, Simcox and California activist Jim Gilchrist teamed up on the Minuteman project that attracted worldwide attention. Simcox was at the forefront of a movement.
In recent months, Simcox sold the Tumbleweed, got married for a third time and moved to Scottsdale. He says he subsists on his wife's income as well as speaking fees.
Simcox expresses sympathy for undocumented immigrants. "If I were in another country and right across the border was a land of milk and honey, I'd be doing it too," he says.
Still, critics paint him as rabble-rousing demagogue. An article written for the Southern Poverty Law Center, a liberal non-profit organization that monitors hate groups, describes Simcox as "a relentless self-aggrandizer who comes across with the smug egotism and fiery conviction of a former nobody." President Bush and Arizona's top federal prosecutor, Paul Charlton, condemned the use of border vigilantes.
Simcox smiles, saying that "dog and pony show" helped ignite a grass-roots furor that is sweeping the nation.
"The campaign has worked," he adds, "to the point where the president certainly understands that we're not going away. . . . And once the border is secure, the Minuteman movement will turn into a real political force." |
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