Thread: Internet a Key Tool for Immigration Issue Orgs

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Last modified Saturday, June 11, 2005 10:49 PM PDT

Internet a key tool for immigration issue organizations

By: WILLIAM FINN BENNETT - Staff Writer

NORTH COUNTY ---- When a group of activists against illegal immigration fanned out across the Arizona-Mexico border in April to watch for illegal immigrants in order to report them to the U.S. Border Patrol, hundreds of reporters and TV crews were there to cover the action ---- what there was of it.

Organizers said about 900 volunteers showed up from all over the country. The volunteers spotted relatively few border crossers, but the group, known as the Minuteman Project, drummed up national media coverage and became a household name.

How was the group, which started with one man, able to pull off such a feat?

The World Wide Web.

"If I didn't have the Internet, the Minuteman Project probably wouldn't have happened," said organizer Jim Gilchrist, an Orange County retiree who initially thought he might get "five or six volunteers" from his Web site.

But within weeks, hundreds ---- then thousands ---- of people were logging onto his Web site and sending him e-mails, he said.

By the time Gilchrist headed to the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona at the end of March, nearly 1,000 volunteers had joined him.

Most were recruited over the Internet, he said.

The Internet has become a powerful tool for grass-roots political organizing, especially for such groups as the Minuteman Project and others that oppose illegal immigration.

Dozens of similar Web sites, some established in the wake of the Minuteman Project, have become a virtual community that opposes illegal immigration. The sites track and post newspaper stories, raise funds, lobby politicians, and, within a matter of days, are able to mobilize rallies and protests.

In the last two months, such groups used their Web sites to call volunteers to protests or rallies in Baldwin Park, Garden Grove and Fallbrook.

Online rallying

Others opposed to illegal immigration are now posting notices on their Web sites about other future events, including two border-watch vigils in San Diego County later this year.

James Chase's Oceanside-based United States Border Patrol Auxiliary's Web site is asking volunteers to show up for a weeks-long border watch along east San Diego County's portion of the Mexican border, starting July 18.

Chino-based Friends of the Border Patrol is using its Web site to sign up recruits for a similar border vigil, also in east San Diego County, starting Sept. 16. Andy Ramirez, the founder of that organization, said last week that he has already received commitments from more than 700 people for that event.

And on June 25, Joseph Turner's Ventura-based Save Our State is planning another protest in Baldwin Park, a predominantly Latino city near Los Angeles.

Leaders of the groups strategically use e-mail and the Web to solicit support for one another's activities.

In an e-mail forwarded by Chase to the North County Times, the organizer of the Baldwin Park event suggested Chase's group make the trip to his event to promote Chase's San Diego County border watch, which is set for July.

The message, which is from Turner's e-mail address, reads: "Do you have any interest in piggybacking with us and making this sort of a publicity/public awareness event for what you guys are doing down on the border?"

In an indication of how such groups angle for media coverage to further their cause, he also wrote: "We have received national attention and would help you get some publicity."

Like Gilchrist, Chase, Ramirez and Turner credit their use of the Internet as the key to their success in recruiting volunteers and disseminating information about illegal immigration.

"I will pick up stuff off the Internet, put it in an e-mail and send it out to 4,000 people here and in other countries," Chase said.

Their successful recruiting and fund-raising efforts, in turn, have enabled groups that are against illegal immigration to capture the attention of local and national media that flocked to the Minuteman Project's controversial Arizona border watch in April.

The media coverage has not only helped groups recruit volunteers, it also has given them a broad audience for their message.

When thousands ---- even millions ---- of TV viewers and newspaper readers are seeing stories about immigration, those stories "create a broader constituency for restrictive measures," and put pressure on politicians "to support measures that otherwise would not be on their radar scope," Cornelius said.

Illegal immigrant supporters fall behind

As such groups flourish, due in large part to their successful use of Internet technology, the groups that support the rights of border crossers are lagging in the Internet battle.

The disparity is caused primarily because of a lack of funding, a UC San Diego professor and an official with a human rights organization said last week.

"The pro-immigration groups are outclassed and outgunned by the anti-immigrant groups ... and other smaller groups that can count on hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations," said Wayne Cornelius, director of UCSD's Center for Comparative Immigration Studies.

Most of that money is captured through Internet fund-raising campaigns, he added.

"There is no question that Internet technology has been central to recruiting supporters and disseminating their message," he said.

Some organizations that defend the human rights of immigrants, illegal and otherwise, are feeling the pinch, an official with one of those organizations says.

"There is no doubt they are winning the Internet battle," said human rights advocate Armando Navarro, a professor of ethnic studies at UC Riverside.

"I am amazed at the effectiveness of their network," said Navarro, who heads up an organization called the National Alliance for Human Rights. He added that his group, which traveled to Arizona in April to protest the Minuteman Project, has yet to set up a Web site.

He said that opposing groups' success in using the Internet as a grass-roots political tool boils down to dollars.

"If you look at the constituency of these 'nativist' groups, they're more educated, have money to buy computers, with more time to travel (to rallies), and they are making this a priority in their lives," Navarro said. "Many of our people are too preoccupied just trying to survive. We have a lot of catching up to do."

Virtual activism

At least one group that opposes border watches has used the Web to try to sabotage organizations such as the Minuteman Project, holding what it called "virtual sit-in" to try to shut their Web sites down.

The Southwest Action to Resist the Minutemen runs a Web site that encouraged its visitors to jam the Minuteman Project's Web site by logging onto it repeatedly, slowing it down. The organization said its operation was a success, with more than 78,000 people swamping Gilchrist's Web site in a "virtual sit-in."

Gilchrist, however, said the group failed to shut down his Web site.

The immigration debate isn't the only forum in which the Web has become a mobilization tool for activists.

An expert in the use of the Internet for politics and advocacy said that use of the Internet during the last presidential campaign highlighted the change that is starting to occur in grass-roots politics.

The Bush campaign, in particular, made excellent use of the Internet as a fund-raising tool. Pro-Bush Web sites recruited people for rallies and encouraged them to forward e-mails to their friends, said Karen Jagoda, founder of San Diego-based E Voter Institute, a nonprofit trade association.

Some grass-roots political organizations took note of the Bush campaign's success, she said.

"I think some of these advocacy groups are learning from political candidates and adapting more to advocacy over the Internet," Jagoda said. "If you are trying to build a community of interest and trying to influence someone or an institution, (these Web sites) are like a virtual town square."

A Web site that will enable a group to effectively use the Internet as a fund-raising and networking tool is not that expensive, Jagoda said. For about $2,000, grass-roots political groups can set up a Web site with basic functions that allow fund raising and signing of petitions, she added.

She said that her advice to people opposing groups such as the Minuteman Project is this: "Go on line, come up with an Internet strategy, look carefully at what the competition is doing and do it better."

On the Web:

www.minutemanhq.com/

www.swarmtheminutemen.com/index.php

www.unitedstatesborderpatrolaux.com/

www.afsc.org/immigrants-rights/default.htm

Contact staff writer William Finn Bennett at (760) 740-5426, or wbennett@californian.com.

Illegal immigrant supporters fall behind

Of course they do. There aren't that many of them.
The pro-illegal crowd doesn't seem to grasp the concept
that the vast majority of American DO NOT support illegals.

This is good news Bbean, Ive posted it on the homepage. Funny how La Raza has 60 million a year to spend but their groups are the ones lacking funds.. Yea right.

http://www.alipac.us/modules.php?name=N ... le&sid=464

W

The Southwest Action to Resist the Minutemen runs a Web site that encouraged its visitors to jam the Minuteman Project's Web site by logging onto it repeatedly, slowing it down. The organization said its operation was a success, with more than 78,000 people swamping Gilchrist's Web site in a "virtual sit-in."

Typical dirty tricks by a slimy bunch of people who want to make breaking Federal law acceptable. But their low down tactic failed!

To bad the article did not mention that all of their tactics are ILLEGAL!

W

Just be on guard.

I am about finished reading Tom Friedman's book "The World is Flat" or something like that.

What it makes me realize is: Never be complacent. Things are changing all around you and if you don't adapt you will get run over.

Same thing applies to immigration reform.

While we not only dominate both in public opinion and in activism, supposing for example Moveon.org decides to make immigration its big cause celebre and starts making a big stink.

Now, if they were considering something like that they might decide it was a bad idea on account of I'm sure there's some segment of Moveon's membership that is on our side, that would complain about them getting involved in anti-labor and anti social justice activities.

But, you always have to be on guard.

Good point about La Raza.

Wasn't there something in the news recently about some fancy office they dedicated in Washington the other day?


No matter how much corporate cash the open borders folks can lavish on such organizations, and how many politicians they can pay off, they can never overcome the fact that THE PEOPLE ARE ON OUR SIDE.