Anti-Immigrant Activists Claim that Minutemen are (Too?) Racist

Renunciation by Minuteman Leader James Chase

Minuteman leader James Chase, head of the California Border Watch, has split with Minuteman Project, charging racism and fascism in the Minutemen’s ranks.

In an email sent to the Minuteman Project chat room, Chase formally split his organization and its members from the Minuteman Project, as reported on November 27, 2005, by Raoul Lowery Contreras. Chase wrote:

“I cannot continue in any way, shape or form in a relationship with Minuteman Civil Defense Corps or even Minuteman Project…James Gilchrist wanted to skin Chris alive but then they went to Washington and picked up the two DC crooks Mary Lewis [Gilchrist’s congressional campaign manager] and Connie Hair [official Minuteman Project spokesperson] and the corruption machine was off and running. Now Mary is even allowing the Nazi party into the campaign and they refuse to remove Ranch Rescue, Andy Ramirez and Cliff Linquist from their links. So you have an absolute CON man Andy in your ranks sucking many thousands of dollars away from the cause. I have standards of right…sending email and letter requests for money to all of our people, even to my grandchildren, sister-in-law, and distance English ex-step mother is just without all Class or regard for civility. I am sad that some of you are so desperate, so gah gah, over what was a super lightning rod for anti-illegal immigration that you refuse to see that ethics and honesty is above all. May the Lord Open your eyes to see and your nostrils to smell the manure before us.”

Mary Parker Lewis managed Gilchrist’s congressional campaign. Hair is the official Minuteman Project spokesperson.

Chase posted a similar disclaimer on his California Border Watch website, http://www.borderwatch.us/ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1&Itemid=0, notifying his members and the public of the split in the Minuteman ranks

KJ