Deep Ties Between The Minutemen Project And White Supremacists

You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt. - Exodus 22:21 (NRSV)

Last year I wrote a piece outlining ties between the anti-immigrant group The Minutemen Project and white supremacists using information from the Southern Poverty Law Center.  The so-called Minutemen are responsible for armed vigilante patrols of the US-Mexican border and are busy now trying to build a wall between our two nations.  Even President Bush has condemned their actions. 

Many people wrote in on behalf of the Minutemen to criticize my comments.  Right-wing extremist Devvy Kidd wrote on a website associated with Alan Keyes that "Currie's statement that the Minutemen Project has "ties to white supremacist groups" has no truth to it whatsoever, but truth isn't the agenda. Since Mr. Currie is so in favor of allowing hordes of terrorists, murderers, rapists and other assorted criminals smuggling themselves across the border, perhaps he'd like to extend an invitation to house a few thousand of them - in the name of Christ, of course!"

Just today another e-mail came in from someone upset with my statement.

You have the balls to call americans who belive a country  must  controll its border white supremacists and then ask others to be respectfull of "your views" . FYI the southern poverty law center is a political organization with a far left perspective they are NOT a credible Objective source. perhaps you should educate yourself about some of the other hate groups in this country to get a balanced view start with the brown power fascists in the aztlan movement  who state they want to reclaim the entire west southwest  thru first breeding out the whites, blacks and jews to a managable number and then the final solution is extermination or forcing the survivors back to europe. whites do not have a patent on the cancer of racial supremicy and the minutemen are NOT white supremacists.  your ignorance is staggering to the informed ,yet saleable to those who hold their beliefs based on emotion rather than empirical  evidence. In closing it is you my freind who should learn that  slandering those who with you disagree is never 'respectfull".  your entire artical is a "personal attack" get a clue Rob corporalpunishmentllc@comcast.net

Comments like Rob's and Devvy Kidd's only serve to confirm observations that racism is at work in the immigration debate now being exploited by conservatives during the 2006 midterm elections.  The Rev. Bob Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches, recently weighed in on this issue in an op-ed piece.

And in the year since I first outlined the concerns raised by the Southern Poverty Law Center about ties between the Minutemen and white supremacists the evidence has deepened.  SPLC reports that the founder of the Minutemen, in a failed race for Congress late last year, relied on help from known Neo-Nazi members:

Neo-Nazis volunteered for Jim Gilchrist's recent congressional campaign and distributed racist propaganda at Gilchrist rallies with the full knowledge of the Minuteman Project co-founder and his campaign managers, according to a former Gilchrist campaign volunteer whose account is supported by photographs, video footage and postings on the white supremacist Web site Stormfront.

The political and Religious Right - contrary to Biblical teachings - continues to divide our people on issues related to race in an effort to gain power.  These groups - like the Minutemen and the Family Research Council (whose founder has ties to Nazi leader David Duke) - are the ideological heirs of George Wallace and others who sought to exploit fear and bigotry.  Our churches must do more to expose the links between the anti-immigrant movement and white supremacists and to proclaim the Biblical ethic of welcoming the stranger into our midst.