Minutemen say they've made a difference, but critics disagree

By ARTHUR H. ROTSTEIN
Associated Press Writer

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) -- As their month-long border deployment draws to an end, leaders of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps say their efforts have brought more attention to the illegal immigration issue and more supporters to their border security movement.

Critics are less generous in their assessment, and the U.S. Border Patrol is maintaining its neutral position on the hundreds of volunteers watching for illegal entrants in Southern Arizona.

"It's helped to gather more volunteers, and it's also helped to further debate," said Stacey O'Connell, state director of the group that opposes illegal immigration and demands government action to secure the border.

"This is the time to make the nation aware of how poor our border security is, and I think we've been very successful in doing that this month."

Jennifer Allen, director of the immigrant rights advocacy group Border Action Network, said the group's presence along the border have done nothing to bring real solutions to the problems along the border.

"They further distract the general public and policymakers from real solutions that can provide for meaningful immigration reform and that can provide for real security on the border."

The Minutemen, Allen said, are clouding the immigration reform issue.

"They continue to provoke fear and have been inciting anti-immigrant violence," she said.

Alessandra Soler Meetze, executive director of the American Civil Liberties-Arizona chapter, said its observers have been present to "document and observe as best we can in hopes of deterring violence."

Meetze said there have been two minor, nonviolent incidents in Arizona this month. But there have been no reports of violence connected with Minuteman operations.

Arizona is the nation's busiest point for illegal immigrants crossing from Mexico, with a corridor southwest of Tucson experiencing some of the heaviest traffic. Minutemen have set up observation posts there this month.

Since April 1, several hundred Minuteman volunteers have spent time stationed on private ranch lands, watching for and phoning in sightings to the Border Patrol.

Minuteman chapters also have been active along both the Mexican and Canadian borders.

As of Thursday, O'Connell said Minuteman observers had reported to the Border Patrol seeing 1,300 people crossing through the Arizona desert this month. They also confirmed arrests of 601 of those people, he said.

But according to Border Patrol figures, citizen calls of sightings dropped significantly in April compared to the month before the Minuteman operations; so did apprehensions throughout the Tucson sector.

In March, there were 1,240 calls, but the number dropped to 955 through Wednesday, said agency spokesman Gustavo Soto. In addition, apprehensions of illegal immigrants dropped by 19,000, or 30 percent, from March through the first 26 days of April, Soto said.

Border Patrol spokesmen have said officials are neutral about the Minutemen, neither endorsing their observe-and-report efforts nor criticizing them.

"We don't know what kind of impact they made, if any," said Chuy Rodriguez, another spokesman for the patrol.

"We don't distinguish to see who's making the (citizen) calls."

Mike Albon, a spokesman for Local 2544, a union representing Border Patrol agents in the Tucson sector, said, "We haven't had any complaints of the Minutemen interfering with normal operations."

He said he also did not know whether their efforts could be classified as helpful or a hindrance. "We're basically neutral to their activity, but they have not interfered, so that's a plus."

In fact, he said legal observers affiliated with the American Civil Liberties Union's Arizona chapter watching the Minutemen to prevent any harassment or rights violations of illegal immigrants "have interfered more" than the Minutemen.

O'Connell accused ACLU volunteers of shining flashlights in the faces of Minutemen at night and of videotaping them and their license plates. He also said they have flashed lights into the desert, honked horns and made other noise, allegedly to alert illegal immigrants coming through the area that Minutemen were present.

"If that's what they're doing, that would definitely at night interfere with our operations," Albon said.

Meetze, the ACLU director, said, "That's not our intention and that's not the way that we operate and intend to operate. We're not there to get involved and to interfere with the work of the Border Patrol."

The goal of the ACLU's volunteers, she said, is to be observers.

The Minutemen, she acknowledged, "have been able to exercise their free speech and get their message across that they don't agree with the way our government is enforcing immigration laws."

The ACLU also is present, she added, "to enable them to express their rights. They have a right to express themselves. They just don't have a right to cross the line and take the law into their own hands."

The Minutemen will continue volunteer patrol activities in states where the group has chapters one weekend each month as well as monthly operations each April and October, said O'Connell.

He said Arizona's Minutemen now have an excellent relationship with Border Patrol agents on the ground, as well as some supervisors. "The trust level is there," he said.

One supervisor, he said, "was just ecstatic that we were there and able to help in this way."

But he also said that there is fear among rank-and-file agents of retribution from superiors if they show or publicly express support for the Minutemen.

Rodriguez, the Border Patrol spokesman, said, "I couldn't speak for that comment at all."

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