Posted on 08/14/2005 7:21:31 PM PDT by SwinneySwitch
HOUSTON- The organizer of a volunteer group that has taken up the cause of combatting illegal immigration brought his recruiting efforts to Houston on Sunday, comparing the group's border surveillance to that of a neighborhood watch.
Minuteman Civil Defense Corp. President Chris Simcox, who trained about 30 volunteers in Houston late Sunday, said he's looking for people willing to set up a lawn chair, use a pair of binoculars and program Border Patrol's number into their cell phones.
"We are the nation's largest neighborhood watch program," Simcox said outside a Houston airport hangar where his members privately trained new volunteers. "We sit in lawn chairs and we observe. And when we spot illegal activity, we report that to the proper authorities."
The group is planning to patrol Texas' border with Mexico in October, repeating an action it took along Arizona's border in April.
Simcox said his volunteers have no contact with illegal border crossers. "We do nothing but act as eyes and support for law enforcement and Border Patrol," he said.
The League of United Latin American Citizens, however, says the volunteers set out to harass and intimidate.
"They get into their cars and then they set up camp like it is for deer, but instead it is for human beings," said Anna Yanez-Correa, a national legislative liaison for LULAC. "It's like the KKK of the year 2005."
Simcox insists his group is not racist. The volunteers, he said, have the best interest of illegal immigrants in mind. When they videotape and photograph immigrants at day labor centers in Houston, he said they are doing to so report the employers of illegal immigrants to federal authorities.
"This is about rule of law," Simcox said. "It's about national security ... we never mention anything about people of any certain group. This is about enforcing an orderly queue of immigration in this country and, conversely, it's about saving the lives of people who are being exploited."
Simcox said Americans who live in border states are tired of immigration laws going unenforced. His group's ultimate goal is to make federal authorities enforce existing law.
"It's a protest that our government obviously is not taking border security seriously," he said. "The more attention that is brought to the problem, the more influence we will have over our public servants and we will get them to fix this problem."
LULAC district director Rick Dovalina, however, said the Minuteman's tactics aren't the way to influence change.
Dovalina tried to make the point to one of the group's volunteers Sunday by writing down the man's license plate number while it was parked at the airport in a lot where Simcox talked to the media.
The man whose license was written down confronted Dovalina.
"How do you determine that a person isn't documented when you see them on the streets?" Dovalina asked the man. "Just because they are Hispanic? Is that the criteria you use to take their picture and take their license plate down?"
Dovalina said if the volunteers are unhappy with elected officials there's a way to replace them.
"You can't take things into your own hands," he said.
Simcox, however, said everything his group does is protected by the U.S. Constitution and legal.
His group visited Dallas, Hillsboro and Houston over the weekend with plans to go to Midland, Alpine and El Paso later this week.
"We have millions of people entering our country every year and we don't know who they are," Simcox said. "We know the results of the crime. We know the results of the social issues and we know we have enough empirical evidence that there are people from all over the world that are using crime syndicates, human smuggling operations, to enter our country illegally _ and I don't think they are coming here to do landscaping jobs."
Dovalina fears the Minuteman effort will bring about the worst.
"There's always people of different mentalities and if you give them a green light, then I don't want to revert back to the days when there were secret meetings and secret societies and the violence we used to have along racial lines," he said. "We've learned to get along and ... I don't want these people starting up things that don't need to be stirred up.
___
On the Net:
Minuteman: http://www.minutemanhq.com
LULAC: http://www.lulac.org
Minuteman Ping!
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Why don't the Minutemen make a little detour and bring their message and recruiting efforts to Crawford?
God bless the Minutemen.
what does la raza mean again...lol
Such a move would bring a potent non partisan political force to the arena. Watch the Democrats and Republicans all of a sudden fall in with the Minutemen.
The passion is there. It needs to be nurtured. The Minutemen as of now stand to be the best hope of collecting this anger welling up in America.
Hmm, I wonder if he's referring to organizations such as La Raza and MEChA?
Nothing but race-based accusatory rhetoric from a person associated with an organization that works to help Latinos, and only Latinos.
I have checked and the last time I mentioned that the Minute Men should be called "Neighbor Hood Watchers" was 5/25/05.
Thanks again for calling "neighbors" just what they are good neighbors watching for intruders into our home [country].
"The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government,
1. The act of invading; the act of encroaching upon the rights or possessions of another; encroachment; trespass.
They have. It is called Operation Spotlight and is here...
http://www.minutemanhq.com/project/
Jim Gilchrist has formed the project and he is the Minuitman Project originator I began working with last December.
Got no idea where that came from.
How about Minuteman....
There will be a perception that you are a Klansman due to the Hoods they wear.
Simple solution: Uncle should enforce the law. Anyone employing an illegal should go to jail. (duh-solution!)
BTTT
The Minutemen should start to expand their operations.
They are and have been and will likely be coming ever closer to a neighborhood near more concerned citizens in the coming weeks and months.
Watching the borders is one thing. Millions who do not live near the border should be recruited to bring the message to the heartland.
It is, has been and is growing like a wildfire burning out of control.
I could easily imagine an organization larger than the NRA.
Agreed and it is happening with each passing day.
I can imagine recruiting union workers who are on the front-line of job disintegration.
That may be a tougher nut to crack but could happen but IMO wouldn't be a deal breaker if they choose to continue to court the latino worker as they continue to see their ranks being thinned out due to the mass influx of cheap slave labor from the third world nation illegal workers.
I can imagine recruiting small service businesses who can't compete with business operators exploiting cheap "temporary guest worker" labor.
I would tend to agree.
I can imagine recruiting hospital middle management employees who see the huge diversion of insurance paid by honest patients given to illegal's.
I agree but not only hospital middle management workers. The same could easily apply to most any other white collar business but will only happen if these affected people start waking up and seeing for themselves what the effects are for themselves and their loved ones.
I can imagine many Americans will take up the cause who see illegal's taking the jobs they want.
This is starting to happen as we speak and will only grow in size and its impact.
Such a move would bring a potent non partisan political force to the arena. Watch the Democrats and Republicans all of a sudden fall in with the Minutemen.
I'm already watching as republican Representatives and Senators are already probing ways to co-op and/or preempt the movement without alienating their big corporation contributors and so far their tactics and antics are proving impotent as Americans are starting to open their eyes in larger numbers and looking outside the traditional two-party sell out crowd in Washington and around the country. IMO Rep. Culbertsons bill at creating state militas is just another attempt at co-opting the growing grass roots movement. Beware of politicans bearing gifts sounding too good to be true.
The passion is there. It needs to be nurtured. The Minutemen as of now stand to be the best hope of collecting this anger welling up in America.
Agreed and they are and they are working towards that goal.
"Watch the Democrats and Republicans all of a sudden fall in with the Minutemen."
They are starting to fall, LoneRanger!
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