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Minutemen head to Pittsburg this Saturday
April 6, 2006

MANCHESTER, N.H. --This weekend, between six and eight members of a national organization devoted to fighting illegal immigration plan to plant their lawn chairs by New Hampshire's border with Canada -- binoculars in hand -- to observe any possible illegal activity.

"We're equipped and ready to report what we see," said Ron Oplinus, 64, of Exeter, a member of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps.

The group's vigil in Pittsburg on Saturday coincides with monthlong citizen border patrols in Arizona and other states where illegal immigration is in the news.

"We're actually helping them," Oplinus said. "We're not trying to do their job; they're doing a very good job. There just aren't enough of them."

The Phoenix-based Minuteman Civil Defense Corps claims up to 500 volunteers are trolling the borderline in Texas and Arizona and reporting their sightings to U.S. border enforcement. Several dozen are doing the same in New Mexico and California.

Their campaign comes as Congress and the Bush administration debate several proposals for immigration reform.

Oplinus, a recently retired engineer, said he suspects thousands of undocumented aliens are living and working in New Hampshire. He cannot say how many may have slipped across the border from Canada.

"Yeah, the major problems are on the southern (U.S.) border, as far as I know," Oplinus said. "But how do we know?"

Since October 2004, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has arrested 2,475 illegal immigrants along a nearly 300-mile stretch from upstate New York to New Hampshire's northeastern tip.

Last fall, a gathering of Minutemen patrolled the Canadian border in the village of Derby Line, Vt. The group did not observe any illegal immigrants in its four days of patrolling.

Oplinus said he doesn't have any expectations for catching aliens Saturday, or when the Minutemen return to Pittsburg April 22 and 23.

Pittsburg Police Chief Richard Lapoint said he doesn't object to the Minutemen, although he does not see much reason for it. Border Protection does an adequate job as it is, he said.