Rest easy. The Minutemen are opening a chapter in Denver.
I should admit upfront: I’m not a fan of the border-patrolling Minutemen. And it starts with the name.
It’s just obnoxious for a bunch of play soldiers on lawn chairs to name themselves after the brave men of Concord and Lexington.
So, in a continued effort to bring you fair and severely unbalanced columns, I looked up Richard Rankin, head of the Denver chapter, to protest. At least that was the plan until Rankin ruined everything by being reasonable.
The new Denver chapter of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, or MCDC, will meet for the first time in Denver on Saturday.
Evidently, Colorado’s tough new illegal immigration laws – as in, tough to enforce – were not enough to pacify grassroots anti-illegal-immigration activists.
“Our main concern is more of observing and working directly with law enforcement,” Rankin tells me. “… We just want to enforce the existing laws.”
For many of us, stuck somewhere in the nebulous middle of the immigration debate, it’s been frustrating to see accusations of racism and xenophobia hurled at anyone who believes a border is worth defending.
Then again, it’s been equally frustrating to see border advocates bring it on themselves by allowing conspiracy quacks, and, yes, nativists, to become part of their efforts.
Is Rankin concerned that these parasitic fellow travelers will undermine a good-faith effort on his part?
“Absolutely, I am very concerned about that aspect,” he explains. “I’ll be one of the first to tell you that there are racist elements, there are haters, there are extremists. The MCDC goes through a vetting process, and it differentiates us – there are other Minutemen groups. We have an extensive background check and interview process, and we are very careful about who we allow to participate in our process.”
Somehow I doubt there’s an effective vetting process for racism, but good luck.
Rankin joined the Minutemen primarily because of national security issues. For many of us, it’s the most persuasive argument – dramatically reinforced by the foiled terrorist plots of last week – for some kind of immigration reform.
“Certainly a lot of people are going to have a lot of different motivations for joining the Minutemen,” Rankin says. “I participate, frankly, because we’re living in a world very different from the one we did five years ago. I was changed by 9/11. My worldview changed, and what’s important changed.”
But how do the Denver Minutemen plan to make substantive changes hundreds of miles from the border?
First, Rankin says they’d like to streamline the process so that local volunteers can get down to (pretend) patrol the border easier. They’d also like to make a difference by “educating” business owners on ways to avoid breaking the law.
According to Rankin, the MCDC will “advocate fair and vigorous enforcement of existing immigration laws” and “observe and report to law enforcement any suspected violations of the law.”
Snitching on landlords and business owners may sound like a reasonable idea to some, but it seems ugly to me. How would you feel if an organization – let’s call them, I don’t know, the “Brown Shirts” – dialed 911 every time they saw a lapsed car registration, parking violation or zoning problem in your backyard?
Rankin, though, likens what the MCDC will engage in to a neighborhood watch.
If he saw someone climbing in my window at night, I’d want him to report it to the police, right?
Well, naturally, if it’s my place. But I guess we see the criminal severity of illegal immigration very differently.
And as long as MCDC follows the law, it is well within its right.
“We do not detain, we do not confront, we work with law enforcement, we identify suspected illegal activity and report it to law enforcement. That is our job.”
Actually, your job is in information technology. But that’s another story.
David Harsanyi’s column appears Monday and Thursday.
He can be reached at 303-820-1255 or dharsanyi@denverpost.com.
