Minutemen Project

The Minuteman Project is an activist organization started in August 2004 by a group of private individuals in the United States to extrajudicially monitor the United States – Mexico border's flow of undocumented immigrants. Founded by Jim Gilchrist and Chris Simcox, the name derives from the Minutemen, militiamen who fought in the American Revolution. The Minuteman Project describes itself as "a citizens' Neighborhood Watch on our border", and has attracted media attention to illegal immigration.

In addition to border watching, the project created a political action committee lobbying for representatives supporting proactive immigration law enforcement and border security issues. Members believe government officials have failed to protect the country from foreign enemy invasion. They strongly support building a wall and placing additional border patrol agents or involving the military to curb free movement across the Mexico-United States border. Roughly half of the members strongly oppose amnesty and a guest worker program, and an overwhelming number oppose sending funds to Mexico to improve infrastructure.

In early 2005, Gilchrist and Simcox rallied over 1,200 volunteers to carry out the first border watch. For one month, activists guarded the 23 mile Arizona-Mexico border, keeping count of the number of migrants approaching, reporting their presence, and scaring them away from crossing through this stretch. Many activists came from Utah, and soon after joined forces with local groups to form the Utah Minuteman Project (UMP), which focused on raising public awareness regarding the “threat of immigration” through local media and public debates.

On April 6, 2005, three Minuteman Project volunteers convinced a 25-year-old man to hold a T-shirt and pose for a photograph and a video with one of the volunteers. The T‑shirt, which was also worn by volunteer Bryan Barton, read "Bryan Barton caught me crossing the border and all I got was this lousy T‑shirt".

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