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Mexican government threatens legal action against anti-immigration project on U.S. border
ASSOCIATED PRESS
3:19 p.m. March 29, 2005

MEXICO CITY – Mexico's Foreign Relations Department said Tuesday that Mexican consulates in Arizona will file criminal complaints against any illegal detentions of its citizens by volunteers of the so-called Minuteman Project.

In a press statement, the department said it would also weigh further steps – apparently civil lawsuits – against people involved in what it described as "vigilanteism" against undocumented Mexican migrants.

In February, Mexico sent the U.S. government a diplomatic note in which it asked American officials to ensure the migrants' rights are respected

In an apparent bid to dampen any possible confrontation, the U.S. Homeland Security Department announced it will assign more than 500 additional patrol agents to the porous Arizona border, two days before the Minuteman project is set to begin.

Hundreds of civilian "Minuteman" volunteers have signed up to patrol a 40-mile stretch of the southeast Arizona border. They say they will merely identify and follow illegal border-crossers and not interact with them. But some of the volunteers plan to arm themselves, although they have little or no training to confront border-crossers.

The 370-mile Arizona border is considered the most vulnerable stretch of the 2,000-mile southern border. Of the 1.1 million illegal immigrants apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol last year, 51 percent crossed into the country at the Arizona border.