At the Ready

At a press conference held last month at St. Anne Catholic Church, Houston City Councilman Adrian Garcia said the police department would watch the Minutemen as they would the Ku Klux Klan or the Black Panthers. The Reverend Oscar Cantu of Holy Name Catholic Church said comprehensive immigration reform was necessary, asking for family reunification and a program that would allow undocumented immigrants to earn their citizenship. "We have exploited workers, divided families, deaths in the desert and fake documents," he said. "Now we have an anti-immigrant group coming to Houston to intimidate workers in our community."

Back when Parmley was president, he had a response ready-made for comments from the Catholic Church: They need to take a lesson from the Minutemen and do background checks because "you don't find a bunch of child molesters in the Minutemen." He's since lost a bit of his bite, although he says he still supports the goals of the Minuteman movement. The exploitation of people and destruction of property isn't going away, and it's happening in his own backyard. But there's no way in hell he'd ever sign up again, he says, as long as the national organization refuses to boot some of the Goliad folks out.

"You'll probably see me out there helping La Raza," he says, referring to the national Hispanic advocacy group. "I mean, honestly, if this is the type of people" the Minuteman movement is going to allow.

Garza says he'd love to have Parmley back. "He's a very good guy. In fact, he belongs as the president," he says. "I only took his place primarily because I liked what I saw in him." But Parmley seems fine just where he is, running his company and spending time on his ranch, walking through the thicket and watching out for rattlesnakes.

He's got fences to mend.

keith.plocek@houstonpress.com