PRESS STATEMENT:
FRIENDS OF DAY LABORERS
February 11, 2007
Local Human Rights Group Pressing Charges Against San Diego Minutemen

We are here today at Fairmount Avenue at a local day labor site often targeted by the San Diego Minutemen to celebrate what we hope to be the beginning of the end of their campaign of racial profiling, immigrant scapegoating and harassment of day laborers. Members of Friends of Day Laborers (FDL), have been monitoring and documenting the activities of the local minutemen movement for nearly two years and frankly based on our own experiences we can honestly say that we were not surprised to learn about the recent violent conflict that occurred last week between San Diego Minutemen Founder Jeff Schwilk and former SDMM spokesperson Christie Czajkowski.

Clearly, the Minutemen are a movement that cannot sustain all of the bloated egos, mad with power and vying for leadership of a movement that from its inception has been scarred by vicious infighting. We, ourselves, over the last two years have personally witnessed first hand the violence and aggression of the San Diego Minutemen, which we have documented on video and now wish to share with the public. Over the past several months, under the leadership of Jeff Schwilk, the Minutemen have begun to escalate an increasingly hostile response to our activities. 

After Minuteman member Gabriel Pollach attacked us with pepper spray at a Minuteman protest in National City last September, Jeff has taken every opportunity to get in our faces, attempting to intimidate us and threatening us with more pepper spray. In one of many threatening emails Jeff has directed towards us he said, "These anti-American rebels thought they were just "clowning around", but when you play with fire you often get burned.  Geeky boy found out just how much pepper spray burns when you take a direct hit to the eyes."As a leader of the Minutemen, Jeff's aggressive behavior and irresponsible glorification of violence has unfortunately served as an example for other minutemen to follow. 

The most recent example occurred last week while we were monitoring the minutemen a day laborer site in El Cajon. On that day members of our group were shoved and I was actually knocked to the ground by a Minuteman. We are here today to announce that after months and months by these vigilantes we are left with no other recourse but to finally pursue legal action against individuals in the Minuteman group who are prone to aggressing upon us. 

We would also like to acknowledge that our experiences are merely a microcosm of the tragic reality of systematic violence and death that the border itself truly represents.

The time is long overdue to reevaluate the human costs of our own immigration policies that have already left over 5,000 dead. In recent weeks, a series of tragic occurrences has reminded of us of just how volatile and dangerous the U.S./Mexico border region has become.  In one recent example, Francisco Javier Dominguez Rivera was killed by an unidentified border patrol agent somewhere between Bisbee and Douglas, Arizona on January 12. In an email sent out to the SDMM list Jeff commented, "in America" we call these incidents "cleansing the gene pool...........Darwinism " Hate speech like this perpetuates the dehumanization of migrants which ultimately leads to horrifying acts of violence , such as have been occurring in southern Arizona over the last month. In a series of mysterious attacks, at least 4 people have been murdered by vigilante like gangs, shooting at migrants.   

Hate crimes against migrants are not new to San Diego.  Everyone has heard about the recent acts of terror by vandals targeting the migrant worker camps in McGonigle Canyon.In an e-mail dated December. 22,  Jeff shared with us his contempt for the inhabitants of these camps.  After they were temporarily vacated as a result of a highly publicized Minutemen instigated eviction, Jeff said, "We will not tolerate any more of your third world homeless villages in America."  He added, "The illegals and their filth are gone and we will NOT let them return."We won't speculate as to who was behind the vandalism in McGonigle canyon, but you can certainly judge a man by the company he keeps.  

Up until very recently Jeff has been virtually inseparable from  Christie Czajkowski who is currently being investigated by police in connection with the incident.At a time of increasing violence targeting those crossing the border we ask: Why does the public tolerate armed bands of aggressive vigilantes led by unstable personalities such as Jeff and Christie to further complicate an already volatile situation? If we cannot trust the Minutemen leadership to settle petty squabbles amongst themselves in a peaceful manner how can we trust them to not overreact violently against those who they perceive to be their enemies?