For "Thunder on the Border," click this picture:
Posted on 07/17/2005 9:02:31 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
MORRISTOWN, Tenn. - A volunteer movement that vows to guard America from a wave of illegal immigration has spread from the dusty U.S.-Mexican border to the verdant hollows of Appalachia.
At least 40 anti-immigration groups have popped up nationally, inspired by the Minuteman Project that rallied hundreds this year to patrol the Mexican border in Arizona.
"It's like O'Leary's cow has kicked over the lantern.
The fire has just started now," said Carl "Two Feathers" Whitaker, an American Indian activist and perennial gubernatorial candidate who runs the Tennessee Volunteer Minutemen, aimed at exposing those who employ illegals.
Critics call the movement vigilantism, and some hear in the words of the Minutemen a vitriol similar to what hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan used against Southern blacks in the 1960s.
The Minuteman Project has generated chapters in 18 states — from California to states far from Mexico, like Utah, Minnesota and Maine. The Tennessee group and others like it have no direct affiliation, but share a common goal.
"I struck the mother lode of patriotism or nationalism or whatever you want to call it," said Jim Gilchrist, a Vietnam veteran and retired CPA who co-founded the Minuteman Project 10 months ago. "That common nerve that was bothering a lot of people, but due to politically correct paralysis ... everyone was afraid to bring up — the lack of law enforcement."
At the Department of Homeland Security, whose authority includes patrolling borders and enforcing immigration laws, response to Minuteman-type activism is guarded.
"Homeland security is a shared responsibility, and the department believes the American public plays a critical role in helping to defend the homeland," agency spokesman Jarrod Agen said from Washington. "But as far doing an investigation or anything beyond giving us a heads-up, that should be handled by trained law enforcement."
A group leading patrols of the California border raised concerns from the U.S. Border Patrol last week when they urged volunteers to bring baseball bats, mace, pepper spray and machetes to patrol the border. They backed off the recommendation, but insisted on another weapon when they started patrols Saturday: guns.
"The guns are for one reason — to keep my people alive," said Jim Chase, a former Arizona Minuteman volunteer who is leading the effort.
Gilchrist said people from across the country have been sending him dirt on companies that hire illegal immigrants.
"It is a rampant problem. It is happening in Chicago and Portland, Maine. And Milwaukee and Montana and Idaho. And these people want the government to do something," he said.
The Southeast has the nation's fastest-growing Hispanic population. In Tennessee, the Hispanic population nearly tripled in the last decade.
The Tennessee Minutemen, which plans rallies in Memphis and Nashville and reputedly has heard from at least 120 potential members statewide, insist they are not vigilantes or racists.
"We don't want to project it as a hate group. We don't hate anybody or anything. But there are legal immigrants and illegal," Whitaker said.
In Morristown, a Southern industrial town of 25,000 with a small but burgeoning population of Latinos, some see the Volunteer Minutemen's spiel as race baiting.
"The same sort of dogmatism that racists used against blacks in lower Alabama and across the South, I am seeing the same patterns here," said Thom Robinson, who heads the area's Chamber of Commerce. "They are using it as a racially divisive thing."
Santos Aguilar, executive director with Alianza del Pueblo, a regional Hispanic support group in Knoxville, said he fears the volunteers are "spreading a lot of misinformation and are terrorizing the ethnic community in the area."
Members of the Hamblen County Commission recently suggested that Hispanic immigrants were to blame if property taxes have to be raised next year — though commissioners insisted they were talking only about illegal immigrants.
County Commissioner Tom Lowe, who says "we do not want (all) Hispanics stereotyped as illegal," estimates as many as 85 percent of Hamblen's Hispanics are — and he fears they carry drug-resistant disease.
"We could be two or three aliens away from an epidemic that would sweep through our county and state," the retired pharmacist said.
Hamblen County Mayor David Purkey said, like Lowe, he supports immigration laws, but finds such comments disturbing. "I think you have to be careful when you are expressing your opinion on that, that you don't appear as if you are against diversity as a whole," he said.
Guatemala native Noel Montepeque, who owns a company that provides a variety of blue-collar jobs to Hispanics, said the tone has changed since the first migrant farm workers passed through the area in the 1990s.
"Now they are getting afraid of the many Hispanic folks coming in," Montepeque said. "And we are coming to stay."
___
On the Net:
U.S. Customs and Border Protection: http://www.cbp.gov/
Tennessee Minutemen: http://www.tennesseevolunteerminutemen.com/
Way to go, Tennessee, and all other states getting involved!
This is how to get things done!
It is not in my NJ Motor Vehicle Driver's Manual. ;)
Hi, CJ...may I ping you to another thread?
Summary executions? Where?
Most certainly you may.
I don't doubt that you can.
Thats not an argument in favor of anything, or against anything. If you have a case for or against our current immigration policy, then make it.
I've made mine. If you disagree, fine. Explain your case. I'll read it and think about it. But the Nazi references aren't going to help your case or persuade anyone.
We are blessed. We have an economy that is capable of absorbing a fair influx of people. The people who are coming in are for the most part from this hemisphere, culturally Western, culturally Christian. We aren't faced with the challenge that Western Europe faces, making up their population deficits with people who despise western civilization.
But the current policy is unjust, dishonest, hypocritical. It creates a two-tiered labor force, some protected, some not. It allows, during wartime, anyone to enter the country, and we know not who.
Do you know some racists who favor border security? Do you know some racists who like Coca Cola?
Do you know some racists who like having access to cheap, unprotected labor?
Its not an argument. State your case, refute my case. I'll read your case and think about it.
You waited too long! Now I have to go find it.
Hang on...
If I find it again, you'll get the ping. I, however, NEED to log off for the night.
I could introduce you to a few who have called for the cold-blooded murder of unarmed men, women and children because they don't like the fact that they committed misdemeanors.
And I am confident that there are thousands that you could be introduced to that have been victims(and many that you can't be intoduced to because they're dead) of an illegal's criminal act. I suggest that you, Rod and Dane take a dictionary and look up the word "illegal".
Its not an argument. State your case, refute my case. I'll read your case and think about it.
They have NO case. There are a handful like CJ that come on these illegal threads and do their race-bating. They present no facts, no logic or anything to support millions of illegals entering the country. They are aware that 30% or more of those entering are not Hispanics, but they continue the anti-Hispanic rhetoric anyway. The majority of posters on these threads are all for immigration-but legal.
For "Thunder on the Border," click this picture:
As if a visa or a U.S. birth cerificate can magically thwart crime.
Don't forget to include the 47% of Hispanic voters who voted in favor of the anti-illegal alien measure Prop 200 in Arizona. I never realized that there were so many "anti-Hispanic" Hispanics in Arizona. I guess these Hispanic voters hate Hispanic illegal aliens because they're of a different race or culture, right?
Themselves the children or grandchildren of undocumented immigrants, who knows where within human nature that comes from? From my perspective you are all a bunch of Johnny-come-lately's to my family's hemisphere, but I extend to you a hearty welcome all the same.
Ah, but according to rod, you would only say that to cover up the fact that you really hate all immigrants. See how that works?
But I shouldn't speak for him, he'll be here soon enough with the same old BS. Think of him like one of those "whack the mole" games in the penny arcade. He's not important enough to get angry over.
No es relevante en 2005. Tenemos leyes de la inmigración por una razón; se ha colocado nuestra nación, y tenemos no más de largo un destino manifesto.
A propósito, he decidido fijar todos los comentarios a usted en Espanol, pues usted se parece desear a una sociedad bilingüe multicultural donde la gente no puede entenderse.
Cómo usted tienen gusto de él hasta ahora?
;^D
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.