Minuteman Rallies at Capitol

Illegal-Immigration Opponents Draw Counter-Protest

Deborah Courtney, a Minuteman supporter from Orange County, Calif., argues at the rally with counter-protester Luke Kuhn of Rockville. (By Bill O'leary -- The Washington Post)

About 100 supporters of the Minuteman Project rallied on the West Lawn of the Capitol yesterday morning, imploring the government to tighten the nation's borders and reject guest-worker legislation.

Not long after it began, a few counter-demonstrators showed up with signs and shouted their own opinions. A short while later, when Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist began speaking, two young men dressed in black slacks, khaki shirts and red swastika armbands walked onto the lawn and headed for the rally.

"Oh, no," said a woman with a Minuteman sticker on her coat. "Not the Nazis."

Gilchrist looked at the two men approaching the rally. "Nazis go to hell!" he said, adding that he was going to stop the proceedings for a short time because he didn't want the men to share the spotlight.

The two men -- Paul White, 28, of Roanoke and Kevin Swift, 22, of Reston, members of the National Socialist Movement, also called America's Nazi Party on the literature they handed out -- were quickly surrounded by the media.

A couple of minutes later, they were asked by police to move along, which they did, taking up a spot across the street from the West Lawn, where they chanted slogans and posed for pictures with high school students touring the nation's capital.

The rally quickly resumed. In addition to Gilchrist, two members of Congress -- Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) and Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) -- addressed the Minuteman Project supporters, calling on Congress and President Bush to plug the country's "porous borders" and attacking proposals for guest-worker programs and amnesty for illegal immigrants.

The Minuteman Project began attracting national attention when members began civilian patrols of the Mexican border in an effort to inhibit border crossings. In Herndon last year, a local chapter was founded, and its members began photographing day laborers who gathered at a 7-Eleven as well as employers who went there each morning looking to hire them.

The Herndon chapter opposed a publicly financed day-laborer center at the old Herndon police station. When the center opened in December, a large contingent of Minuteman members were there, along with counter-demonstrators, and they engaged in loud, sometimes tense, debates.

Last night, the Herndon chapter held a meeting, with Gilchrist in attendance, and leaders of a recently formed Maryland chapter were introduced.

At the rally yesterday morning, there was spirited interaction but no tense confrontations. The counter-demonstrators initially mixed with the pro-Minuteman crowd but then seemed content to heckle speakers from the back.

"We are being told that we have to bring more people in from other countries because there are jobs that American people won't do," Rohrabacher said. "Americans will do any job as long as they are paid a fair and decent wage."

As he spoke, some of the counter-demonstrators shouted that the Minuteman members were racist.

"We're trying to keep this positive," Rohrabacher said, "We want to make sure that people know that the people who are calling us names, they have the bad spirit."

When it was Gilchrist's turn to speak, he did not ignore the counter-demonstrators or their signs. "Now, you with the KKK sign -- who are you calling a racist?"

"You!" shouted the man with the sign.

Gilchrist paid no more attention to the counter-demonstrators, turning his attention to the 100 U.S. senators whom he had invited to the rally. "Dear senators of the United States of America," he said, "I am putting you on notice that at 12:14 p.m. on February 8 in the 2006th year of our Lord, that if we cannot change you with our letters, I can assure you that we can move you with our rhetoric. And we will most assuredly move you out of office with our votes."

Gilchrist, who made an unsuccessful run for Congress as an independent, called for a 500 percent increase in funding for border patrols. He said illegal immigration is undermining the U.S. economy to the extent that a "devastating disaster" will occur very soon.