Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, Inc.

6501 Greenway Parkway
Suite 103-640
Scottsdale, AZ 85254
Phone: 520-829-3112
http://www.minutemanhq.com/

Political Action Committee:

Declaration Alliance Minuteman PAC - http://www.mcdcpac.com/

Affiliated Projects:

• Minuteman Border Fence
• Students for a Secure Border
• US Justice Foundation MCDC Legal Defense Corps

Finances:

• Minutemen Civil Defense Corps - $418,493 (2005)
• Declaration Alliance Minuteman PAC - $153,027 (2006)

Donors/Members:

• Minutemen Civil Defense Corps - 39,649

Chapters:

• Minutemen Civil Defense Corps -76

Who's Who:

MCDC

• Chris Simcox - President
• Carmen Mercer - Vice President
• Maureen E. Otis - Secretary

Declaration Alliance Minuteman PAC

• Treasurer - William Constantine
• Secretary - Mary Parker Lewis

The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps (MCDC) is the Minutemen faction run by Chris Simcox that emerged after the alliance between Simcox's Civil Homeland Defense and Jim Gilchrist's Minuteman Project fell apart. MCDC is actually the 4th incarnation of Simcox' border vigilante group.

The origins of MCDC go back to 2002, when former kindergarten teacher Chris Simcox became obsessed with the border after 9/11.He moved to Arizona and purchased a local newspaper, the Tombstone Tumbleweed, using it as a vehicle to call for the formation of an anti-immigrant militia. He also conducted armed vigilante patrols, hunting for migrants along the Arizona border.

In January 2003, Simcox was arrested by federal park rangers as he was hunting for undocumented immigrants armed with a loaded pistol, a digital camera, walkie-talkies and paramilitary gear. In May 2004, he was convicted of carrying a concealed weapon on federal land while tracking migrants and lying to a federal officer about it and sentenced to two years probation.

Following the conviction, Simcox continued to organize civilian border patrols and intensify his call for the militarization of the border. He has on many occasions made disparaging remarks about Mexicans, for example blaming Mexican immigrants for a laundry list of ills, including spreading tuberculosis in public schools. He is also prone to conspiracy mongering, alleging that Red Chinese troops are spread out along the US-Mexican border, poised to invade.

Besides his solo patrols seeking undocumented immigrants in the Arizona desert, Simcox made unsuccessful stabs at forming his own local anti-immigrant vigilante organizations. In December 2002, now-deceased white nationalist columnist Sam Francis wrote about Simcox's Tombstone Militia, ready to go to war with border crossers. "A plainspoken gentleman of Arizona named Chris Simcox announced that a citizens' group he founded-the Tombstone Militia-was about to undertake the function of protecting his state's and the country's borders from invasion," wrote Francis.

Yet Simcox's "militia" went nowhere fast-other than piquing the interest of white nationalists like Francis-even after he renamed it the less vicious sounding Civil Homeland Defense.

In October 2004, Simcox merged his group with Jim Gilchrist's to form the short-lived MinutemanHQ. The merger barely lasted through the first Minuteman maneuvers in April 2005. On May 12, 2005 their website announced that the group had changed its name to the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps.

With Gilchrist's faction out of the picture, Alan Keye's Declaration Alliance and Diener Consulting stepped into the vacuum. MCDC national leadership quickly turned from border watching to political activity - just like Gilchrist's Minuteman Project. During the 2006 electoral campaign, Simcox crisscrossed the country stumping for Republican candidates. The newly created Declaration Alliance Minuteman PAC raised $153,027 in 2006.

At the same time the national leadership was moving away from border vigilantism, local MCDC chapters shifted focus. Many of the 76 MCDC chapters turned to harassing day laborers and employers and perpetuating the racist "reconquista" conspiracy theory.