EX-VALLEY MAN EYES U.S.-MEXICO BORDER.

Byline: Beth Barrett Staff Writer

Two years ago Glenn Spencer gave up his longtime home in Sherman Oaks and took his anger and frustration over illegal immigration 600 miles to the Arizona desert, where he joined the vanguard of what has become a massive citizens border watch.

And a month ago, he found himself joined by hundreds of volunteers from all over the country in the Minuteman Project, which used intelligence from his Border Eagle, a small, unmanned aerial vehicle guided by a Global Positioning System to keep an eye on the border.

As the citizen patrols that brought unprecedented national attention to the issue conclude Saturday, Spencer feels as if he's made a difference, taken a giant step toward seeing the U.S.-Mexican border closed to illegal immigration.

``The legacy will be that Americans came from all 50 states and stood on the border like a Neighborhood Watch and behaved themselves only to be called vigilantes by the president of the United States and the president of Mexico,'' he said in a telephone interview Thursday.

``It shows the gap between the political leadership of this country and the people who want something done about this.''

Latino-rights organizations and other groups have denounced the border patrols as vigilantism and racism.

The worst fears, that patrols of armed civilians would confront smugglers, didn't materialize, but federal officials and activists remain wary of such activities.

``There is concern that groups like this are really acting as vigilantes who take the law into their own hands,'' said Araceli S. Perez, staff attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, in a recent interview.

``We're concerned there are private citizens who may have racial animus trying to enforce laws in violation of immigrants' rights.''

The organization has begun to take legal action in cases where private individuals detain illegal immigrants - something the Minuteman Project and Spencer said they don't do.

Minuteman Project volunteers, who spent this week in Washington, D.C. speaking to the national media and others, said they were vindicated because the number of immigrants detained along the 31-mile area near Naco, Ariz., dropped by two-thirds this month compared with a year ago, 4,173 versus 12,402.

``I believe at one time maybe 10 percent of the people in the United States knew what was going on. Now I'd say the awareness of the entire country is well over 80 percent,'' said John Cryar, a Minuteman Project volunteer from Douglas, Ariz., and an Air Force retiree.

``We've been able to prove it can be done, if there are enough feet and eyes on the ground.''

Border Patrol officials have attributed the decline in crossings this month largely to Mexican military operations south of the border, and to 200 additional temporary border patrol officers in the Tucson area. Apprehensions this month over a year ago were down about 15 percent along the much longer Tucson area stretch of border.

Spencer, 67, who previously worked in computers and oil exploration, said he became disenchanted with effecting change in Los Angeles after running Voice of Citizens Together and backing Proposition 187 in the wake of the 1992 riots, a measure that limited public services to illegal immigrants that was largely struck down by the courts.

``I fought the problem in California for 11 years and got absolutely nowhere; it got worse,'' Spencer said. ``I'm retired. Either I go fishing somewhere or made one last stand when it came to the border.''

Spencer ended up on a dirt road 4,000 feet above sea level in Palominas, where he's watched the battle escalate on both sides from a triple-wide trailer he shares with his German shepherd, Star, 1,100 feet from the border overlooking the San Pedro River, a major smuggling route.

Joined by a dozen or so other volunteers, Spencer spends much of his days and nights using the Border Eagle, a craft that weighs about 18 pounds and has a 10-foot wingspan, as well as infrared cameras to document illegal crossings, which he then posts on his Web site inside a command center in his home.

When the Minuteman Project began, Spencer said he wasn't surprised by the outpouring of frustration, but said at the time he feared violence.

``There are strong feelings on both sides,'' Spencer said a month ago of the sudden explosion of volunteers. ``There are drug dealers south of the border who don't like what they're doing. There are all the active ingredients there for an incident.''

Despite widespread opposition to the civilian patrol movements among federal officials, they can't be sent away from the border unless they break the law.

``Bringing that large amount of people out here untrained, and in some cases armed, to patrol the border is a bad idea,'' said Andy Adame, spokesman for the Border Patrol in the Tucson region. ``The border is very violent. We feel one of these untrained civilians will come face to face with a scrupleless smuggler.''

Adame said civilian patrols began about six years ago, mostly by ranchers angry that the illegal immigrants were crossing, and in some cases damaging their property.

Whenever a civilian detains an illegal, the local police and the detainee's consulate has to be called to ensure that civil rights aren't being violated, adding hours to their processing and return to Mexico. Last year, federal Border Patrol officials in Tucson apprehended 491,000 people trying to cross the border, compared with fewer than 150 by the citizen patrols.

The Central American Resource Center, a group Spencer sparred with in the 1990s, said the patrols use problems in immigration laws as ``excuses.''

``At the essence, they are restrictionists; they don't want to see any more Mexicans enter the U.S.,'' said the center's executive director, Angela Sanbarano.

Robert Barragan, president of the Valley Economic Development Center, added:

``If people are that concerned about illegal immigration, they should take action against the employers. People should quit hiring day laborers, gardeners. It's hypocritical for any members of our society to blame people who come across the border and not hold employers accountable.''

John Keeley, a spokesman for the Center for Immigration Studies, a nonprofit Washington, D.C., think tank that critics say has an anti-immigrant point of view, said the Minuteman Project underscores the national concern over illegal immigration.

``It's indicative of the simmering disgust ... on the part of Americans who feel the brunt of the government's neglect of the laws.''

Beth Barrett, [phone]

beth.barrett(at)dailynews.com

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(color) Former Sherman Oaks resident Glenn Spencer joined the beginnings of the private border watch group two years ago.