NEW YORK – Minuteman Project founder Jim Gilchrist says he's launching the "Operation Normandy" program, and he hopes it will by next summer gather 3,500 volunteers on the U.S.-Mexico border to "stop an invasion."
What Gilchrist describes as an "invasion" is the flood of illegal aliens, including many children, coming into the United States from Mexico. Many of the illegal aliens are from Central America, where the word is that those who reach the United States gain access to food, housing, health care and education.
Part of the impetus has been identified by Barack Obama critics as the president's policy of deferring deportation action against young illegal aliens.
Now Gilchrist, in a move that reflects increasing tension over the flood of illegals, some of whom are carrying tuberculosis, polio and other threats to society, has issued a new call for citizen volunteers to join him at the U.S. border with Mexico.
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The move would be reminiscent of the similar efforts Gilchrist made in 2005 and 2006 to stem the tide of illegal immigration from the south.
In an email to WND, Gilchrist said his new "Project Normandy" was launched July 7, with the goal of calling some 3,500 non-militia volunteers to participate as citizen watchers assisting law enforcement on the border.
Gilchrist estimates the effort will "dwarf" his previous call issued in April 2005 for "Minutemen" to come to the border.
"If you are familiar with the Normandy invasion of France in 1944, then you have an idea how large and logistically complicated this event will be," Gilchrist wrote.
"However, there will be one minor difference. We are not going to the border to invade anyone. We are going there to stop an invasion."
Gilchrist told WND he anticipates it will take 10 months to recruit, organize and launch his "Operation Normandy," with the goal of covering the 2,000-mile border from San Diego, California, to Brownsville, Texas, scheduled to begin on May 1, 2015, and end on May 30, 2015.
An 'invasion' from Central America
In a working paper shared with WND, Gilchrist compared the current influx of an estimated 50,000 unaccompanied minors from Central America illegally crossing the U.S. border with Mexico to "an offensive" military operation.
"This offensive is an invasion, not led by troops, but by divisions of mothers, children and young adults marching north from Central America and Mexico," Gilchrist wrote.
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"It is an offensive that shows no signs of slowing down but instead is spreading to other nations, putting America in even greater peril. Patriots around our nation are sounding the alarm as the Middle East and parts of Africa also pour their legions into Mexico that so they, too, can march north into the United States," he wrote.
Gilchrist warned that the United States is rapidly becoming a Latin American nation as Mexico and Central America literally transfer their populations into the United States, without any conference with the electorate by the nation's political governors.
"It is very clever of the pro-illegal alien, anti-rule of law criminal elements in Mexico and the United States to use unwitting children as weapons in their assault upon the sovereignty of the United States," he said.
"These criminals know very well that the U. S. Border Patrol will warmly welcome these children and essentially provide protective and privileged custody for them indefinitely, until they are in the custody of someone, some organization, or some family in the United States. Once established in a household or an orphanage, each of the children will be followed by several dozen relatives and friends also from south of the border," he charged.
The Minuteman Project insists that all participating civilian volunteers adhere to the rule of law, including all laws and regulations about bearing weapons at the border.
Gilchrist has repeatedly insisted he conducts Minuteman Project operations to support law enforcement efforts on the border, including those conducted by the U.S. Border Patrol.
Minutemen Project civilian volunteers are not allowed to undertake efforts to apprehend the illegal immigrants themselves, but are trained to observe illegal border crossings and to report those to the Border Patrol and local law enforcement officials.
WND attempted unsuccessfully to obtain comment from U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement in the Department of Homeland Security on the plan, as well from the National Border Patrol Council of the AFL-CIO, the U.S. Border Patrol labor union.
Gilchrist is a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps and a recipient of Purple Hearts for wounds he suffered in combat in Vietnam. He lives in California, in retirement from a career as a CPA.