http://www.news-record.com/apps/pbcs.dl ... /609010309



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Article published Sep 1, 2006

Man hopes to create local branch of the Minuteman corps

By Lex Alexander
Staff Writer
GREENSBORO -- Reagan Sugg grew up picking tobacco alongside legal immigrants in Lenoir and Greene counties.

Now, he wants to keep illegal immigrants from coming here.

Sugg plans to form a local chapter of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, a grass-roots group seeking to halt illegal immigration. The movement, which has since splintered into at least three separate groups, first gained nationwide publicity in April 2005 when it began patrolling areas of the U.S.-Mexico border.

Up to 12 million illegal immigrants live in the United States, and 275,000 enter every year, the government estimates.

Allowing large numbers to enter because of lax border security makes the country more vulnerable to terrorism, Sugg argues. Moreover, because they fear being deported, illegal immigrants are less likely to complain if employers force them to accept substandard wages or unsafe conditions.

"Americans will do the jobs illegal immigrants are doing," Sugg said, "but they won't do it at slave-labor wages."

Sugg said groups like his have formed because politicians of both parties benefit, or expect to, from illegal aliens.

"The left wants cheap votes. The right wants cheap labor," he said. "Real movement would have to come from grass-roots efforts."

According to recent Senate testimony and a report in The Washington Post, civil-fine notices to employers hiring illegal immigrants fell from 417 in 1999 to three in 2003, and criminal prosecutions of employers fell from 182 in 1999 to four in 2003.

Recently, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has emphasized criminal prosecution over civil fines and had charged 445 employers between Jan. 1 and the end of July, The New York Times reported.

A House bill would strengthen enforcement of immigration laws. A competing Senate version would emphasize amnesty for illegal immigrants already here. Resolution of the two is unlikely this year.

Sugg says he became interested in immigrants as he watched Greensboro become home to increasing numbers in recent years. The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks sharpened his interest.

In 2005, Sugg joined the Minuteman organization via its Web site, and in October 2005 he participated in a border watch in the Arizona desert in which volunteers passed the locations of illegal immigrants to law enforcement but did not approach them.

Watching borderland marked by only a few strands of barbed wire maintained by ranchers, Sugg said, "It's as if someone left the back door to your house open."

Sugg sees important roles a local organization could play:

* lobbying for a secure wall along the U.S.-Mexican border,

* raising money to send volunteers to border watches,
* raising public awareness about illegal immigration,
* pressuring politicians to solve immigration issues.

One thing Sugg doesn't want his group to do is take illegal immigrants into custody. Vigilantism "is not what we're about, and it's not our job."

That's good news to both federal and local law-enforcement officials, who say they welcome "neighborhood watches" but don't want private citizens taking the law into their own hands.

Marc Rimondi, spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, encourages people to call the agency's toll-free tip line.

"If you suspect there's a fraudulent document ring going on where fake Social Security cards are being sold, or if you suspect there's human trafficking or smuggling, or if a corporation is knowingly disregarding the law and hiring large numbers of illegal aliens, that's the kind of thing that should be reported," he said.

Guilford Sheriff BJ Barnes said his officers can't arrest illegal aliens simply for being here.

But if they arrest one on some other charge, such as driving while impaired, they notify ICE or another federal agency, such as the FBI.

Like Rimondi, Barnes welcomes tips but prefers that people not take law enforcement into their own hands because it's unsafe: "The Constitution gives you the right to resist if you're (illegally detained), and that's not where we want to go."

Contact Lex Alexander at 373-7088 or lalexander@news-record.com


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Copyright © 2006
The News & Record
and Landmark Communications, Inc.