http://www.kpho.com/Global/story.asp?S=4836921&nav=23Ku

Minutemen say they've made a difference, but critics disagree



TUCSON, Ariz. Volunteers with the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps are winding down their month-long border deployment this weekend. They say their efforts have helped raise awareness of border security issues.

But immigrant rights advocates say the deployment in Arizona and other border states has done nothing to bring real solutions to the immigration problem.

The Arizona director for the Minutemen says hundreds of volunteers watching the Mexican border helped point out just how bad border security really is. Stacey O'Connell says volunteers called in 13-hundred sightings to the Border Patrol in Arizona alone and take credit for about six-hundred arrests.

But Jennifer Allen of the Border Action Network says the Minutemen are clouding the issue and are distracting the public from real solutions and immigration reform.