http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/border/123439

Published: 04.06.2006

Minutemen say their calls result in 203 border arrests
By Arthur H. Rotstein
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
TUCSON — Minuteman border watch volunteers deployed in Arizona this month have called in close to 600 sightings of suspected illegal immigrants observed crossing through the desert southwest of here.

Connie Hair, spokeswoman for the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, said Minutemen had reported 591 sightings of suspected illegal immigrants to the U.S. Border Patrol from Saturday, when the monthlong operation south of Three Points began, through early afternoon Wednesday.
She said the calls resulted in 203 arrests by the U.S. Border Patrol.

When Minutemen staged their first such patrols last April along the border near Naco in southeastern Arizona, they claimed credit for sightings that resulted in the arrest of about 330 illegal immigrants for the entire month.

This year, Minuteman volunteers are set up on private ranch lands about 35 miles north of the Mexican border in a corridor that has become the busiest in the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector for illegal immigrant trafficking.

Volunteers are to call or radio the Border Patrol with any sightings.
The Border Patrol initially indicated it would track calls from Minutemen reporting sightings, but on Wednesday, spokesman Johnny Bernal said there was a decision not to do so.

Bernal said the agency receives numerous calls daily from citizens.

"We have hundreds of calls a day, so trying to decipher who's Minuteman, who isn't, would just be a difficult task," he said.

Hair said there have been 78 sightings by Minuteman volunteers in New Mexico resulting in 28 arrests; 200 sightings near Falfurrias, Texas, with no figure available on resulting arrests, and 38 sightings near San Diego in California, also with an undetermined number of arrests.

No sightings have been reported in Washington state or New York state, she added.