Thread: Group opposing illegal immigration gains national foothold

http://www.kltv.com/Global/story.asp?S=4257111&nav=1TjD

Group opposing illegal immigration gains national foothold

TUCSON, Ariz. The Minuteman Project launched earlier this year amid fears that racist extremists would confront and possibly injure illegal immigrants crossing into Arizona.

But there were no significant confrontations, no fights and rarely any excitement. That's even as hundreds of people traveled to the Arizona desert during April to watch for border crossers and report them to immigration agents.

Since then the movement has taken hold, with Minuteman-inspired organizations springing up in Texas and several other states. Even Minuteman critics acknowledge the participants are more than just a band of misfits, bigots and extremists.

Mark Potok is director of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project, which monitors hate groups. He says his group's research finds "real strains of racism and anti-Semitism in this movement."

However, Potok says attention surrounding immigration problems has helped attract "a fairly broad cross-section of middle Americans."

___

On the Net:

Minuteman Project: http://www.minutemanhq.com/project/

Southern Poverty Law Center: http://www.splcenter.org/index.jsp

National Immigration Forum: http://www.immigrationforum.org/