ACLU unable to oust patrolling Minutemen

Since 04-20-06

By Brady McCombs
Arizona Daily Star

Tucson, Arizona

04.19.2006
http://www.azstarnet.com/dailystar/metro/125259

The American Civil Liberties Union's attempt to get the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps volunteers off state trust land fizzled out Tuesday.

Last week, the ACLU's Ray Ybarra contacted the Arizona State Land Department about the group's presence on state trust land without permits.

On Monday evening, a resource area manager from the Arizona State Land Department visited the volunteers, who are carrying out a month long patrol south of Three Points on a private ranch off Arizona 86, both groups concurred.

From there, the stories stray a bit.

Stacey O'Connell, Arizona chapter president of the Minutemen, said the issue was resolved that evening when some of the volunteers showed valid permits and those without promised to get them online.

"Nobody was escorted off state land, nobody was asked to leave," O'Connell said.

Ybarra said he heard radio communications as the resource area manager told the group that it needed state permits, even with permission from the ranch owner, to be on state trust land.

On Tuesday, deputy state Land Commissioner Richard Hubbard called it a misunderstanding by the employee. He said the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps volunteers were invited by the landowners to do ranch work in addition to their patrols, which gives them the right to be there.

"They are authorized to be there under the terms of the lease," Hubbard said.
Ranch owner Pat King, whose ranch includes some state trust land that she leases, said she has a contract with the group for the volunteers to monitor cattle, pick up trash and fix fences on her property, King's Anvil Ranch.

She called the ACLU members misguided, out-of-town youngsters who don't understand what people- and drug smugglers have done to her land and the valley.

"Those American Civil Liberties Union persons up there are not concerned about me at all," King said. "So they are not really the American Civil Liberties Union are they? Because they don't give a darn about what has happened to my constitutional rights to property."

Ybarra and about 60 other volunteers have been monitoring the Minuteman volunteers since they began their patrol April 1. The wrangling is the latest in a series of nonphysical skirmishes between the groups.

Ybarra says the volunteers shine high-powered flashlights on them as they drive by. O'Connell accuses the ACLU of berating and harassing them on their patrols and of interfering with Border Patrol apprehensions. He said the group will consider legal action.

Ybarra said he will continue to investigate the state permit law and called the series of events Monday and Tuesday suspicious.

Contact Brady McCombs at 573-4213 or bmccombs@azstarnet.com.