Thread: Minutemen make their way to Houston

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mp ... an/3469364

Nov. 17, 2005, 10:08PM

Minutemen make their way to Houston
Their interaction with day laborers in the city is civil; they say employers are the end target
By EDWARD HEGSTROM
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

The Minutemen came to monitor day laborers in Houston on Thursday, their first operation in the central city.

Members of the controversial group opposed to illegal immigration photographed and filmed the mostly illegal immigrant workers who gather near the corner of Washington and Shepherd.

The Minutemen kept their distance, remaining in their trucks several yards from the workers. There was no confrontation, and the day laborers did not run.

"They were trying to spread a message of fear, but it didn't work," said Juan Alvarez, an organizer of the day laborers who has formed a group called the Latin American Organization for Immigrant Rights.

But Phil Johnson, the local head of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, said the group was not trying to make the workers run. He said they were observing the employers who picked up the men and taking down their license-plate numbers to use the information against those contractors in the future.

"We're really going to go after those employers," Johnson said. "We're going to let them know what the penalties are" for hiring illegal immigrants.

Federal law allows for fines of between $110 and $1,100 for every illegal immigrant an employer hires. Nina Pruneda, a spokeswoman with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the government welcomes complaints from the community about the hiring of illegal immigrants.

But a report from the Government Accountability Office earlier this year noted that "workplace enforcement has been a low priority" for the government. ICE has just 90 employees nationwide who investigate the hiring of illegal immigrants, and most of their time in recent years has been spent investigating airports, nuclear plants or other facilities considered critical to national security, the report said.

Alvarez said he does not think the Minutemen will succeed in driving off the contractors.

"The situation of supply and demand will always exist," he said.

The Minutemen originally announced that they would arrive in Houston in October as part of a national campaign against illegal immigration. But the arrival was postponed to concentrate efforts in South Texas, Johnson said.

In the past couple of weeks, Johnson's group has begun monitoring work sites north of downtown Houston, including one in Tomball and another in Kingwood.

Though the operation Thursday was the first in central Houston, Johnson said the group would return repeatedly.

The Shepherd-Washington area is one of the oldest and busiest day-labor areas in the city. More than a hundred men gather there looking for work most mornings.

Residents and business owners in the area frequently complain to police about crime and trash associated with the day laborers.

Alvarez said the Minutemen showed up in the morning Thursday with four trucks carrying a total of about a dozen men. Some of the day laborers called Alvarez, who arrived to assure the men that they did not need to run. Alvarez had the workers hold up signs such as "Houston is a hate-free zone."

"I looked at them and smiled," Alvarez said.

Johnson, who was in one of the trucks across a parking lot from the workers, said he noticed this.

"It's a very nice smile he has," Johnson said.

What the Minutemen need to do is recruit from among the legal day laborers for whom job competition is a real daily bread and butter issue. If they try to rely on middle class Minutemen it will be an unremunerated drain on other ways for their people to use their time.

As for hate try soliciting in Mexico for a job without papers and looking like a Gringo or a Central American. The Mexicans enforce immigration to Mexico and that is why a lot of the Central
Americans continue up here.