4um: Border watch project raises concerns (San Diego)

He's worried that when the border watchers arrive in the area this summer, they may face similar threats, he said.

"You're going to have a hell of a lot of encounters," the 66-year-old man said.

Despite his concerns, Hoebeck said he welcomes the promised arrival this August of hundreds of activists who are planning to observe and report the presence of illegal immigrants to the U.S. Border Patrol. He has even offered one of the activist groups, Friends of the Border Patrol, the use of his 170-acre property as a staging area, Hoebeck said.

But Hoebeck, along with some activists and law enforcement officials, have said the vigil could be a riskier one than a similar border watch project in Arizona last month.

The mountainous, arid terrain is among the most dangerous in the nation, Border Patrol officials say. And officials with several groups and law enforcement officials said they worry that violent confrontations may occur between border watch volunteers and smugglers, as well as between border watch volunteers and human rights advocacy groups that oppose them.

Arizona project

In April, a group called the Minuteman Project drew national media attention when it sent hundreds of volunteers to do the job they said the federal government has failed to do: stop immigrants from illegally entering the United States at the border with Mexico.

For one month, volunteers fanned out across the Arizona-Mexico border in an effort to spot illegal immigrants crossing there. They then reported border crossers' presence to U.S. Border Patrol agents, who arrested more than 300 people. While many of the volunteers were armed, not one shot was fired, one of the organizers for that project said last week.

Minuteman Project officials have said that part of their mission was to raise awareness of the dimensions of the problem of illegal immigration. In the Tucson area alone, Border Patrol officials said that between Oct. 1, 2003 and Sept. 30, 2004, the agency's agents arrested about 490,000 undocumented immigrants trying to enter the country. During the same period, agents captured 1.14 million illegal immigrants entering the United States along the Southwestern border as a whole. About 138,000 were caught along San Diego County's portion of the border.

The Minuteman Project's Arizona border watch stirred controversy across the nation, with some people endorsing their work. In late April, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger praised their efforts. Some human rights organizations, however, scorned the project, labeling it racist.

Different terrain

While Hoebeck said he supports a Minuteman Project-style border watch in East San Diego County, the region's chaparral-covered mountainsides and canyons are a far cry from the flat, open Arizona desert where the Minuteman Project did its work, he said. There, volunteers were able to see immigrants coming from a long distance and the illegal immigrants would often head the other way.

"We don't have open areas (here); you got no view and that makes it a hell of lot more risky," he said.

As patrolling volunteers wander through heavy brush and around rock outcroppings, they could suddenly stumble onto groups of armed smugglers.

"Suddenly you are face to face, right on top of them; it could be bad ---- somebody is going to walk out and somebody ain't," Hoebeck said.

Two private groups, Chino-based Friends of the Border Patrol and Oceanside-based Border Patrol Auxiliary, have announced plans for a project similar to the Arizona border watch this summer along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Friends of the Border Patrol founder Andy Ramirez said last week that his group, which could have up to 500 volunteers, plans to start its operation in East County on Aug. 1. Border Patrol Auxiliary founder James Chase said his group will begin its work in East County on July 18, although he doesn't yet know how many volunteers will be participating.

The U.S. Border Patrol welcomes the help of citizen volunteers in the fight against illegal immigration, a Border Patrol official said last week.

"We have and will continue to encourage these efforts," said San Diego sector Border Patrol spokesman Sean Isham. "All concerned citizens who help ---- and that is basically what these groups are ---- make the U.S. a safer place."

Concerns over weapons

Chase said that many of his volunteers will be armed. San Diego County Sheriff's Department spokesman Capt. Glen Revell said that volunteers would not be violating the law by openly carrying weapons, as long as they are in areas where shooting or hunting is permitted. Shooting and hunting are allowed on most public land in rural East San Diego County, he said.

Friends of the Border Patrol's Ramirez said that among his volunteers, only active-duty and retired law enforcement officers will be allowed to carry weapons.

While the border watch initiatives are intended to be nonviolent in nature and volunteers are simply to observe and report, they will do what they have to do to protect their lives, if necessary, said Minuteman Project's Jim Gilchrist, who is promoting the California border watch projects on his minutemanproject.com Web site.

"There is not going to be any deliberate attempt to shoot firearms, but if someone is coming down a trail with an AK 47 (automatic rifle) and aims his weapon at you, somebody is going to open fire," he said. "I am more worried that one of these volunteers will be executed by a criminal than I am about a volunteer shooting somebody."

With more and more money to be made by smuggling illegal immigrants ---- the going rate runs between $1,000 and $2,000, Border Patrol officials say ---- attacks on Border Patrol agents themselves have increased in recent years, said Mario Villarreal, a national spokesman with the U.S. Bureau of Customs and Border Protection.

"The stakes are higher; they have much more to lose, so in many cases they are going to do anything they can to push these groups into the U.S.," Villarreal said Friday.

"The border has historically been a very treacherous place, but assaults against our agents have increased in the last several years," he said, although most of those attacks come when smugglers either throw rocks at agents or try to run them down with vehicles.

A different threat

But confrontations between citizen volunteers and illegal immigrants may not be where the greatest risks lie, Sheriff's Department spokesman Revell said last week.

"We are far more concerned about tensions between a variety of community Latino groups and these (border watch groups)," he said.

Because of those concerns, Revell said Sheriff's Department officials intend to meet with human rights advocacy groups and the border watch groups, to explain to them that disrespect for the law will not be tolerated.

His concerns may be well founded. Tensions appear to be increasing between the groups.

There have been two violent incidents in the past month ---- one in Baldwin Park and the other in Garden Grove ---- involving groups fighting illegal immigration and other groups who oppose them.

Like Revell, UC Riverside professor and immigrant advocate Armando Navarro says that he also is concerned about confrontations between border watch volunteers and groups that advocate for more humane treatment for illegal immigrants.

Navarro, who heads up the National Alliance for Human Rights, led protests against the Minuteman Project in Arizona. Before going there, he had established a strict policy that none of the volunteers who accompanied him could carry weapons of any kind, he said, adding that they were encouraged to protest in a peaceful manner.

"But this is not Arizona," Navarro said last week. "Here, you have numerous groups throughout the state that are pro-immigration rights, and some of them are willing to go much further than some of us. The situation could be very explosive."

Contact staff writer William Finn Bennett at (760) 740-5426 or wbennett@nctimes.com.