Immigration Clearinghouse

For months, Jim Gilchrist, founder of the original border vigilante group, the Minutemen, looked forward to his invitation to speak at a Public Interest and Law Conference hosted by The Harvard Undergraduate Legal Committee (HULC).

Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed and it was decided that Gilchrist’s participation in the conference on the behalf of the Minutemen Project was not compatible with providing an environment for civil, educational, and productive discourse on immigration, and HULC decided they couldnot host him at that time.

And they were correct. Wherever Gilchrist appears, it is to rant about spew misinformation about illegal immigrants, border security and his utopian vision of a world without immigrants.

Kyle de Beausset, an undergraduate student and migrant advocate, and publisher of the esteemed site CITIZEN ORANGE,was one of the original Harvard protesters seeking to have Gilchrist invitation rescinded.

“It’s a victory for people who are trying to get hate out of the immigration debate. There’s a difference between having views, and hate speech.”……Kyle de Beausset

After de Beausset appeared on the O’Reilly factor, Gilchrist singled him out for his most scathing rebuke and thinly veiled threats.

In once statement, Gilchrist makes a thinly veiled reference to violence by bringing the second amendment into the debate.

“It is obvious why our Founding Fathers placed the Second Amendment directly after the First Amendment. When free speech is no longer an irrevocable right, well, that’s what the Second Amendment is for…to preserve the First Amendment…for everyone on U.S. territory”……Jim Gilchrist – Minuteman Project (16 October 2009)

And Gilchrist went far and wide whining and complaining about his exclusion from this symposium.

Propaganda may bode well for Kyle de Beausset and his egomaniacal demand for attention, but the price paid by Harvard’s loss of stature as a beacon of free thhought and free speech is irreparable….Jim Gichrist, President, The Minuteman Project

He appeared on the Neil Cavuto show on Fox where he basked in the attention of the host referring to him as a hero and further bashed de Beausset.

The kid is — obviously he’s stupid — and if anyone should be banned and barred from Harvard University, it should be a student that stupid and irresponsible…Jim Gilchrist……

And now, posting comments on de Beausset’s own site, Gilchrist goes in this direction.

Regarding my comments about threats of disruption and violence, those suggestions came from my Harvard student contacts who claimed such threats were being made, albeit in a subliminal manner.

I think both of us could have accomplished more in furthering the resolution to our nation’s heated debate on immigration issues had my invitation to speak not been revoked due to threats of disruption.

Of course, many persons disagree with my positions. But, also, an equal amount stoically agree with them. …

I wish you well and I hope you are aware of the selfishness of your actions. I pray that others may not fall victim to the kind of hateful oppression which you promote under the guise of an educated and informed member of the Harvard student community.

Kyle, I must agree that you are a very intelligent and bright person. Actually, I have never met anyone hailing from Harvard who was not reasonbly brilliant.

However, you are not the first Harvard student or graduate to become so mesmerized with your own idolatry that you are blind to the so-called unalienable rights of others. And that is nothing to be proud of.

I hope that someday we can build a bridge over the breach that separates us on what I feel is a chaotic and aimless management of U.S. immigration policies.

Neither of us may be right, or have the appropriate solution to the problem, but without harmonious discourse on the topic there will never be a solution. There will only be unfortunate and divisive acrimony.

Respectfully Yours,

Jim GIlchrist, founder and president, The Minuteman Project

Mmmmm.

Pat Young at Long Island Wins has a similar take on the situation

The First Amendment gives us broad almost unlimited rights to free speech, but not hate speech, used to incite the passions of bigots and others.