The Minuteman Corps of California: Civilian Border Patrols
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© COPYRIGHT by Devin T. Molina 2011 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED THE MINUTEMAN CORPS OF CALIFORNIA: CIVILIAN BORDER PATROLS AND THE PRODUCTION OF POWER AND DIFFERENCE AT THE MEXICO-U.S. BORDER BY Devin T. Molina ABSTRACT In 2005, civilian border patrols gained increased popularity with the emergence of the Minuteman Project and the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps (MCDC). Unlike other anti-immigration organizations, the Minutemen focus their efforts primarily on conducting armed civilian patrols on the U.S.-Mexico border, and to a lesser extent the U.S.-Canada border. This dissertation provides an ethnography of one such civilian border patrol—the Minuteman Corps of California (MCC)—detailing their activities, reasons for conducting armed patrols, and their developing relationship with official border policing agencies. This dissertation shows that individuals who joined the Minutemen generally did so because they experienced feelings of political disenchantment and physical and economic insecurity due to the political, economic, and cultural changes brought about by neoliberalism and transnational flows of people, ideas, and capital. Most blamed non- white immigrants from Mexico and to a lesser extent Asia and the Middle East for ii spreading poverty, government dependence, crime, and terrorism, and for disempowering white American voters. While the Minutemen blamed the government for failing to protect U.S. citizens from the assumed perils of immigration by people of color, in conducting armed border patrols, they also became dependent upon a responsive and cooperative state to achieve their individual and organizational goals. Lacking official police powers, civilian border patrols are dependent upon the state in ways that contradict their view of a largely indifferent and irresponsible government. In negotiating their ambivalent relationship with the state, the Minutemen adapted their tactics to more closely resemble official police efforts including wearing uniforms and increasing their violence-wielding capacity. In short, the Minutemen represent neither an extension of state authority nor a challenge to it. Instead, what we see is a process by which a group of individuals who feel disempowered by widespread political and economic processes seek to access and harness the coercive power of the state. In so doing, the Minutemen further legitimize the power of the state to define, through punitive action, who belongs and who does not within the ideological and physical boundaries of the nation. In sum, the ease with which the Minutemen have been able to adopt state policing strategies reveals decades of escalating state violence directed at migrant populations at the border. What is more, the Minutemen may also reflect a troubling development within contemporary U.S. politics: the growing belief that the sole and proper role of government is to provide physical security that is promoted and protected primarily by the police, military, and an armed citizenry. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank the members of my committee for their steadfast support, helpful insight, and inspiration. Thank you for having the courage to carry out your research, proving to me that my project was possible. Lesley, thank you for sticking by me from proposal to completion. My research would not be what it is without your work and your help. Cathy, thank you for your eleventh-hour support, for the depth and breadth of knowledge you brought to my project, and for introducing me to many new ideas. And to David, without whom this project would never have been completed: your caring ear, frequent pep talks, and constant encouragement made what seemed impossible possible. I would also like to thank the professors and staff at American University, especially Geoff Burkhart, Brett Williams, Bill Leap, Sabiyha Prince, and Dolores Koenig. To my fellow graduate students at American, thanks for always providing a rigorous and supportive academic environment. To my family, thank you for your patience, encouragement, and support. I especially want to thank my brother, Tim, for his boundless enthusiasm, friendship, and camaraderie. To my wife, Emily, thank you for always being there and for always knowing when I needed help whether I knew it or not. This is as much your achievement as it is mine. Finally, I would like to thank the members of the Minuteman Corps of California for sharing their thoughts, ideas, histories, stories, and lives with me. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................ ii! ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................................................................. iv! LIST OF ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS ......................................................... vii Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................. 1! Explaining Anti-Immigration Activism ...................................................... 8! Methodology ............................................................................................. 25! Outline of the Dissertation ........................................................................ 34! 2. HISTORY OF IMMIGRATION AND BORDER REGULATION ................. 37! Early Immigration Regulation (Pre-Independence to the 1850s) ............. 37! Westward Expansion, The Frontier And Changing Notions Of Race ..... 44! Creating the U.S.-Mexico Border ............................................................. 59! Contemporary Trends in Border Control .................................................. 65! Effect of Border Security on Migration .................................................... 67! The Contemporary Legislative Response ................................................. 74! Who are the Minutemen? .......................................................................... 77! Anatomy of an Operation .......................................................................... 82! 3. LOSING CONTROL ........................................................................................ 88! Encounters with Change ........................................................................... 92! Poverty and Government Dependence ...................................................... 99! Crime ....................................................................................................... 103! v Terrorism ................................................................................................. 108! Cultural Change ...................................................................................... 116! Political Change ...................................................................................... 120! 4. THE BORDER................................................................................................ 127! Making the Border Visible ...................................................................... 134! The Spectacle of Border Security ........................................................... 137! The Dangers of the Borderlands ............................................................. 142! Border Patrols as Recreation ................................................................... 149! Camp Vigilance as Home Away from Home ......................................... 157! “A Secure Border is not as Fun as an Unsecure Border” ....................... 160! 5. THE MINUTEMEN AND THE BORDER PATROL ................................... 168! The Eye in the Sky .................................................................................. 169! Relationship with the Border Patrol ........................................................ 179! Shakedown .............................................................................................. 183! BPAUX and Radicalization as Professionalization ................................ 190! Decline .................................................................................................... 202! Conclusion .............................................................................................. 205! 6. CONCLUSION ............................................................................................... 209! REFERENCES ............................................................................................................... 220! vi LIST OF ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS ACLU American Civil Liberties Union BP Border Patrol BPAUX Border Patrol Auxiliary CCIR California Coalition for Immigration Reform CIS Center for Immigration Studies COMM. CENTER Communications Center DHS Department of Homeland Security FAIR Federation for American Immigration Reform IA Illegal Alien MCC Minuteman Corps of California MCDC Minuteman Civil Defense Corps MSU Mobile Surveillance Unit MEChA Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán NYD Not Yet Democrat OTM Other Than Mexican TBS Turn Back South vii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION In the winter, fall, and spring, heavy cold winds blow through the mountain desert in east San Diego County. In the summer months, those winds carry dry hot air across a land baked by the sun. Travelling on Interstate 8 from San Diego, the elevation rises rapidly and peaks at just over 4,000 feet above sea level. Pine trees near the unincorporated town of Alpine give way to desert chaparral characterized by broad stretches of sage and Manzanita interrupted by the rocky outcrops that litter the windswept peaks. Large electric signs lure