To the Rescue

Hayes says the issue caught his attention because he'd spent his career "catching crooks." On the second floor of his home — past framed pictures of cowboys and American Indians locked in battle and replicas of antique rifles and handcuffs carefully arranged on the stairwell — Hayes has turned a small office into a command center. Beside a towering bookcase packed with titles such as Pat Buchanan's State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America are photos of his father and grandfather, memorializing their service with the Olathe and Kansas City, Kansas, police departments.

"I arrested illegals back in the late '60s," Hayes says. "We'd pick them up, and the INS would come get them. They were farming in the DeSoto area, as I recall, so we ran into most of them on the K-7, K-10 highways. We'd get them by the carload: four, five, six to a car."

In the early '70s, he started investigating a different type of trafficking. Snapshots depict a young, shaggy-haired Hayes in a bomber jacket and aviator sunglasses, buying smack as an undercover agent for a federal drug task force. In one picture, he's making a deal in a shady corner outside a mall in Olathe. In another, he's talking to a bare-chested pusher in the parking lot of the Merriam International House of Pancakes.

Hayes retired in 1993. "I wanted to play," he says. He moved to Colorado, built a house and volunteered his piloting skills with a local search-and-rescue operation. In 2002, he moved to Arkansas to live on the White River. His public-safety instinct kicked in once again in 2004, when he was selling his plane.

"That thing was a hot little airplane — it had 50 percent more power than manufactured," Hayes says. After he placed an ad in a national magazine, a man with what he calls a "Mideastern accent" who said he was from Saudi Arabia responded and started asking strange questions.

"It was a suspicious call," Hayes says. "So I called the FBI and reported it."

The former detective also remembers a trip to an electronics store in Overland Park a couple of years ago that gave him cause for concern.

"There were a couple of Middle Eastern folks buying cell-phone batteries," he says. "I heard them talking to the clerk. They were talking in Arabic — or what I assume was Arabic — and quizzing the salesperson about more batteries. It looked a little suspicious, so I went out to the car and got their license number and turned that over to the FBI."

Such incidents played into the sense of "culture shock" Hayes felt upon returning to Olathe in 2004. He'd been gone less than a decade but was surprised by a spike in the number of "folks from other countries" he saw in the burgeoning suburban community.

"Just go to a lumberyard or stores like Wal-Mart or Kmart," he says. "Or go to a place that sells sprinkler systems. All you have is Hispanic signs and different languages and a lot of people who you've got to wonder if they're not illegal. They're right there in your face."

Hayes says he gets calls and e-mails every day from residents across the state who are concerned about the effects of immigrants on their jobs, their neighborhoods and their safety. He records their information and has worked up more than 50 detailed complaints.

He says he's investigating several situations but won't provide specifics about them.

"No, I better not," he says. "I better leave that alone."

His work leaves little time for other activities. "The other day, I said to somebody that I was working six hours a day. My wife said, 'Try eight or 10.' She keeps track. I had a fellow call the other day who said that he wanted to get involved, and he wanted to get involved right now," Hayes says. That same day, Hayes' wife had surgery on her hand. "I really didn't need to be leaving her. But I went. I had to run to the post office, so I met him there and gave him everything he needed, and he's a member now. And he wants to work."

In fact, plenty of Kansans want to take up the cause.

he back room at Mandeno's restaurant in Topeka is bustling on a dreary Saturday morning in September.

A local TV news camera crew crowds the entrance, but diners can't miss the "Join the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps" banner on the wall. Sitting on an empty buffet line are copies of a sheet listing the group's standard operating procedures. Members are required to remain courteous and never "present for duty or serve in any capacity if intoxicated." To introduce attendees to the Kansas chapter, Hayes has printed handouts that urge, "Remember, it's our country!"