Minuteman Project co-founder Jim Gilchrist was confronted by three associates who had been his closest allies when he arrived at his group's headquarters in Lake Forest in late January.
"Jim," said Marvin Stewart, "the board has terminated you as president."
Gilchrist recalled that it felt like his heart sank to his stomach, prompting him to instinctively yell, "You're all fired."
"No, Jim, you are fired," Stewart said.
Gilchrist, who rose to fame in 2005 as the leader of the citizen group that began patrolling the U.S.-Mexico border for illegal immigrants, soon discovered that the trio had gained control of the Minuteman bank accounts and website. In a recent news conference outside Orange County Superior Court, the three board members said the takeover was triggered by Gilchrist's mismanagement and by missing money, though they provided no evidence of misappropriated funds.
Gilchrist, who denies the allegations, has filed suit in Orange County Superior Court to regain control of the Minuteman Project, claiming that he was illegally ousted from a corporation he formed and was the sole voting board member.
"These are people I would have trusted my life with and they were conspiring against me behind my back," Gilchrist said. "They are kidnapping my child."
The story behind the vote to dismiss America's most famous anti-illegal immigrant fighter contains allegations of hubris and missing money, jealousy and greed, backstabbing and extremism.
It may also be the almost inevitable result of a rapidly growing organization whose membership is swollen with passionate individualists not known for getting along with others.
"They are taking the law into their own hands and doing it in a dramatic way," said Luis Cabrera, a political science professor at Arizona State University. "It's tailor-made for attracting people who want attention and a thrill and want to execute their agenda."
Though others had proposed similar ideas, Jim Gilchrist's battle cry for citizens to guard the border -- amplified in appearances on conservative talk radio shows -- launched 200 Minuteman groups, garnered intense media coverage and set off a national debate on immigration.
Gilchrist's first sortie to the Arizona-Mexico border in April 2005 attracted 200 volunteers, who used cars, trucks, private planes, radios and night-vision goggles to spot illegal immigrants for U.S. Border Patrol agents.
