Thread: Backlash from rallies across U.S. bolsters Minutemen, leader

Backlash from rallies across U.S. bolsters Minutemen, leader says

Susan Carroll
Republic Tucson Bureau
Apr. 1, 2006 12:00 AM

TUCSON - The massive pro-immigrant marches and rallies sweeping across the country have fueled a growing countermovement and piqued interest in upcoming civilian border patrol missions, leaders in the anti-illegal immigration movement say.

Within 48 hours of the 20,000-strong march in Phoenix, the Arizona-based Minuteman Civil Defense Corps signed up about 300 new volunteers for patrols along the U.S.-Mexican border, said Chris Simcox, the organization's leader.

Today, volunteers plan to kick off a monthlong border watch in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas and report undocumented immigrants to the U.S. Border Patrol.




Simcox said the pro-immigrant rallies "really went a long way to awaken the sleeping giant in America."

"People are just astounded," he said. "They had no idea about the number of illegals in the country."

Nationally, major organizations that push for tighter immigration controls have been flooded with sometimes-alarming phone calls from people upset about the mass demonstrations that brought hundreds of thousands of immigrants and their supporters, some waving the Mexican flag, into the streets of Phoenix, Los Angeles and Chicago.


Talk shows heating up


In the Valley, talk on AM radio stations has grown increasingly heated, with callers pushing for counterprotests and economic boycotts of their own.

Today, the Minuteman volunteers plan to gather in a remote area southwest of Tucson for a rally followed by round-the-clock patrols until the end of April.

Leaders on both sides of Arizona illegal-immigration movements are both planning major demonstrations for April 10 in Phoenix and are publicly appealing for calm and non-violence. Each side credits the other for helping spike interest in their causes.


National reaction


Susan Tully, national field director for the Washington, D.C.-based Federation for American Immigration Reform, which advocates reducing illegal immigration, said her office has been "overwhelmed" with phone calls from frustrated people looking for a way to get involved in a counterprotest.

Tully said she has been alarmed by some of the calls and urged restraint and caution.

"I can tell you the frustration you can hear in their voices and the outrage. It's pretty scary," she said.

"I really think the best way for the American public to oppose this guest-worker plan at this point is to continue to make phone calls, faxes, write and go visit U.S. senators and representatives rather than taking to the streets."

She also worried about how pro-immigrant demonstrators are interacting with members of FAIR and other anti-illegal immigration organizations.

"I promise you if we announced tomorrow that we were going to have a march in Los Angeles or Phoenix, the other side would be out there to confront them, and it could get really ugly," Tully said.

The calls have also flooded offices at the Capitol, where the Senate is trying to craft compromise legislation and debating the fate of the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants in the United States.

Will Adams, spokesman for a staunch illegal-immigration opponent, Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., said phone lines at the congressional office are "overflowing" with calls about the rallies and protests, sending interns and staffers scrambling. He echoed the sentiments of others in the anti-illegal immigration camp, calling the rallies a "tactical error."


'Doesn't play' in Peoria


"The organizers of those rallies think that by waving some Mexican flags and showing a protest against immigration laws that the American people will change their minds. That is simply not the case," Adams said.

"The average American doesn't have a stomach for mass protests in favor of continuing to break the law. That doesn't play well in Peoria."

Elias Bermudez, head of the group Immigrants Without Borders, a Phoenix-based advocacy group that helped rally the record crown for the march on March 24, said he credits the anti-illegal immigration movement with fueling the huge turnouts at rallies across the country.


'Our heroes'


He called Tancredo and Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., who sponsored the House bill criminalizing undocumented immigrants, "our heroes."

"They have caused so much hardship in the Hispanic communities that they're the ones that have produced the outpouring of support for our cause," he said.

Bermudez said he anticipated some "anti-immigrant sentiment" in response to the marches but said it was of little concern.

Like Simcox, Bermudez said he has recently received death threats.

"More people are going to join the Minutemen, more people are going to join all of the organizations that preach hate and anger against the undocumented population," he said, adding, "It's no problem. They're lucky to get 100 or 200 people (at protests).

"I have no worries about people joining up against us."

Simcox had no estimate for the expected turnout at the upcoming patrol or kickoff rally Saturday in Three Points, roughly 30 miles southwest of Tucson.

He and Jim Gilchrist, a retired California accountant, launched the Minuteman Project in April 2005 in Cochise County, a popular illegal-immigration corridor.

A second volunteer effort was held in October. The group received national media attention and claimed to have thousands of volunteers.

Although the patrols were spread out and the shifts staggered, there was no way to reach an accurate, independent count.


'Quite polarizing'


Frank Sharry, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that advocates immigrant rights, said the Minuteman Project, as it was originally called last year, helped create the polarizing rift that has led so many immigrants and supporters to rally and thousands of high school students to walk out of their classrooms.

"This is a very emotional issue, and it tends to be quite polarizing," Sharry said. "When the Minutemen did their thing last year, it was polarizing.

"When immigrants take to the streets and respond by saying, 'We want to be treated fairly,' for other people, that's polarizing.

"Every action in politics generally creates a reaction. So will there be some backlash? Yes. But what this really calls for is political leadership to step in and solve the problem. I hear all of it as a scream for leadership."



Reach the reporter at susan.carroll@arizonarepublic.com or 1-(520)-207-6007.
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepubli ... teman.html

Frank Sharry, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that advocates immigrant rights

Is this guy for real do you think? Oh yeah, that's his job & he gets paid to spout this PC BS.

'We want to be treated fairly.'

Yeah these look like people who just want to be treated fairly: