Thread: Legal Groups to Watch County 'Minutemen'

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexi ... watch.html

Friday, July 1, 2005

Legal groups to watch county 'Minutemen'

By Leslie Berestein
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
July 1, 2005

SAN YSIDRO – If anti-illegal immigration activists patrol the U.S.-Mexico border in San Diego County this summer, legal groups plan to monitor the patrols' activities for human rights or other violations.

At the Casa Familiar community center in San Ysidro yesterday, representatives from four legal organizations announced plans to train legal observers to shadow the civilian patrol groups if they set up along the border.

One group has announced an event in the Campo area in mid-July, and another group has plans to start patrols that could stretch to Imperial County in mid-September.

The observers shadowing the California patrollers will "observe, report and record any encounters or acts of violence between the migrants and the vigilantes," said Lilia Velasquez, a San Diego attorney with the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

The monitoring will be similar to what legal observers trained by the American Civil Liberties Union did in Arizona in April during the Minuteman Project. That monthlong event attracted hundreds of civilian border-patrollers, some of them armed, who watched for undocumented immigrants and made reports to authorities.

Called "vigilantes" by President Bush and other critics, the Minutemen have nonetheless inspired dozens of spinoffs around the country. The leaders of these groups say the federal government has not done enough to curb illegal immigration.

The American Immigration Lawyers Association, the ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties, the San Diego La Raza Lawyers Association and the National Lawyers Guild of San Diego created the local observer program.

Like the volunteer ACLU observers in Arizona, legal observers in California will carry cellular phones, two-way radios, video cameras and still cameras, said William Aceves, a law professor and board member of the ACLU. The observers will be prohibited from engaging in any confrontation or activism.

Members of the Minuteman Project were also instructed to avoid confrontation, although one young volunteer from San Diego chafed organizers when he approached an undocumented immigrant and had him pose for a photo holding an offensive T-shirt.

The relatively peaceful outcome of the Arizona event was helped by the presence of legal observers, said Kate Yavenditti of the National Lawyers Guild.

"The presence of legal observers serves as a deterrent to potential legal or violent activity," she said.

The news that there will be legal observers in California didn't sit well with Andy Ramirez of Chino, whose Friends of the Border Patrol group plans to start patrols Sept. 16, Mexican Independence Day.

"More like legal nuisances," Ramirez said. "What I would like to do is if these legal groups have issues, I would invite them to sit down with me at a round table and discuss these things with me. Our number is listed."

Other local groups are also trying to counter the civilian patrols. Tomorrow, immigrant rights groups calling themselves Gente Unida – United People – will hold an anti-Minuteman rally at San Ysidro Community Park.

Earlier this week, the American Friends Service Committee, a human-rights group affiliated with the Quaker faith, announced it would partner with similar groups in other border states to lobby lawmakers for pro-immigrant reforms, including access to permanent residency for undocumented immigrants already working in the United States.

"We are concerned about vigilantes. We are concerned about the Minutemen, but that is not our top agenda item," said the American Friends' border program director, Christian Ramirez. "We want to focus on the issue of reforming immigration policies. Vigilantism is an outgrowth of failed immigration policies."

Staff writer Gregory Alan Gross contributed to this report

"We want to focus on the issue of reforming immigration policies. Vigilantism is an outgrowth of failed immigration policies."

Somebody needs to do it.

Good start in the right direction. OBSERVE AND LEARN, first hand.
Didn't some of the ACLU observers, learn that they preferred to SUPPORT the Minutemen after doing their "observations"? Good start in the right direction. OBSERVE AND LEARN