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Examiner Editorial - The Herndon OK Corral

A group representing a half-dozen residents is suing the Herndon Town Council for approving a day laborer site with Mayor Michael O'Reilly's blessing - despite being given a previous thumbs-down by the town's own Planning Commission. The controversial vote sparked a fierce debate over illegal immigration that attracted national attention.

The 5-2 vote on Aug. 16 was preceded by a raucous public hearing attended by dozens of angry residents who live in the area around a 7-Eleven where day laborers - many of them illegal immigrants - now congregate. The council vote will allow Project Hope and Harmony to start operating a shelter for the workers in a former police station beginning next month.

But the lawsuit, filed in Fairfax County Circuit Court by Judicial Watch - a Washington-based non-profit group - may be the least of Herndon's problems.

The Examiner has learned that Minutemen may be planning to block access to the site. Organizers for the volunteer grassroots Minutemen Project say they are ready to patrol both the nation's northern and southern borders in October to protest what founder Jim Gilchrist claims is the federal government's failure to enforce immigration laws.

However, Ebner Anivel Rivera-Paz, leader of the violent Mara Salvatrucha gang, has reportedly ordered his members to teach the Minutemen a lesson from his cell in federal prison.

With a large MS-13 contingent in the Washington area, Herndon could wind up being the modern equivalent of the OK Corral.