Chris Simcox

Today, the American for Legal Immigration PAC sent out an email desperately seeking a meger $30,000 in donations to keep the organization afloat, saying it needed $11,000 in the next six days to avoid a potential shutdown, which is what has reportedly happened to the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps:

Only six days remain for us to reach our minimum safe fund raising goal of $30,000. While ALIPAC has never failed to reach our goals, the last few funds drives have been like pulling teeth.

If you want to see Americans for Legal Immigration PAC continue our mission as one of the largest national organizations in America fighting against illegal immigration and against Amnesty on your behalf, then please get your donation on the way now!

Due to many factors, including the bad economy and shifting interests, over 40 smaller groups and organizations in our coalition have folded in the the last year.

Today, we say farewell to ALIPAC's ally known as the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps headed up by Chris Simcox and Carmen Mercer. Citing a lack of adequate funding, the group has sent out a national release announcing their permanent closure.

This leaves ALIPAC as the only major national group formed since 2004 to still be in operation.

We need a very strong response to THIS EMAIL request to make sure ALIPAC does not join the growing organizational casualty list.

We only have SIX DAYS LEFT to raise almost $11,000. Should we fail to reach our minimum operations budget, we will use your donations to keep the main site operational as long as possible during a phased out shutdown.

This was the first we had heard about the Minutemen shutting down, but it looks like that is indeed the case:

The Arizona-based Minuteman Civil Defense Corps that was a border watch group comprised of private citizens has decided to disband.

Minuteman president, Carmen Mercer, says she and the board's two other directors voted to dissolve the group after a five-year run over concerns that her recent "call to action" would attract the wrong people to the Arizona-Mexico border.

Mercer sent an e-mail on March 16 urging members to come to the border "locked, loaded and ready." She proposed changing the group's rules to allow members to track illegal immigrants and drug smugglers instead of just reporting the activity to the U.S. Border Patrol.

Jim Gilchrist, co-founder of the Minutemen, got into some hot water with his fellow anti-immigrant vigilantes after he endorsed Mike Huckabee for president last month. Minuteman Civil Defense Corps leader Chris Simcox rushed to repudiate Gilchrist, as did another Minuteman splinter group, the Patriots Border Alliance. Dozens more groups, from local vigilante outfits to sideshow acts like Mothers Against Illegal Aliens, piled on in a joint letter to “denounce” the endorsement. And Jerome Corsi, who co-authored a book with Gilchrist, seemingly tried to trick the latter into reversing his support for Huckabee.

Perhaps it’s easy for anti-immigrant activists to be picky in a Republican field competing to “out-Tancredo” each other, and despite Huckabee coming out with an immigration plan restrictive enough to attract Gilchrist—one that gives undocumented immigrants 120 days to exit the country—other activists latched on to the candidate’s feel-good rhetoric, such as his statement that “We’re a better country than to punish children for what their parents did.”

But, as if to prove himself wrong, Huckabee is now reaching for a fringe proposal that targets immigrant children in particular, according to Gilchrist.

Apparently spooked by the backlash of his Huckabee endorsement, Gilchrist caught up with the candidate and pinned him down on some red-meat anti-immigrant positions, reports the Washington Times. Along with making the pardon of right-wing folk heroes Ramos and Compean his “first act as president,” Huckabee promised to put an end to birthright citizenship, by hook or by crook, Gilchrist said.

The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps has been under scrutiny from The Washington Times and others recently for its finances – for example, the largest portion of its 2005 budget went to unspecified “professional services.” Times reporter Jerry Seper has written in the past about the close association of the Minutemen with a variety of consulting groups associated with Alan Keyes, who is also the head of the Declaration Alliance. The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps bills itself as “a project of” the Declaration Alliance, and MCDC president Chris Simcox has defended the ties as adding credibility to his group.

Now Seper reports in The Times that the Declaration Alliance and its associated Declaration Foundation are having their own credibility problems:

The Declaration Foundation … was fined $6,500 in August and prohibited by the Pennsylvania Bureau of Charitable Organizations from soliciting donations until it becomes "properly registered."  The Aug. 18 "agreement and order," signed by Declaration Foundation Executive Director Mary Parker Lewis, a top Minuteman adviser, acknowledged that the charity made false statements in seeking to solicit donations, failed to properly administer money it had collected, and withheld documents sought as part of an "investigative subpoena."

According to the bureau, the Declaration Foundation failed over a four-year period to submit audited financial statements, gave false information when it said it did not share revenue with other nonprofit or tax-exempt groups, and misstated the truth when it said none of its officers or employees was tied to any vendor providing services or goods.

The bureau said the Declaration Foundation improperly shared revenue with the Declaration Alliance, another tax-exempt charity founded by Mr. Keyes, which also has been active in overseeing the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps (MCDC).

As more questions are raised about the financial management of the border vigilante group, it seemed telling that yesterday the Minutemen announced the creation of a new project – Minuteman attorneys:

[United States Justice Foundation] and MCDC have set up a joint project called the Minuteman Protection Program (MPP) to provide legal assistance to Minuteman members and insist on the enforcement of state, local, and federal laws relating to the illegal immigration issue.

"If you are an attorney, or if you know an attorney, wishing to help in these issues, please contact, or have them contact, us," the e-mail appeal says.