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Sunday JULY 30, 2006 Last modified:
Sunday, July 30, 2006 7:37 PM PDT

Minutemen spread out in Mohave

By NEIL YOUNG

BULLHEAD CITY - They met in Las Vegas at a “Wake Up America Foundation” meeting over Memorial Day weekend and decided to form the Mohave County Minutemen.

Virginia Hilton is a retired grandmother from Bullhead City. Gianluca Zanna was an Italian immigrant who became a U.S. citizen “April 29, 2005,” a date he proudly recites.

Zanna recently relocated from Apple Valley, Calif., to Golden Valley, where he operates a music mixing business.

Hilton and Zanna said the group has 30 members spread out between Kingman and Bullhead City and has no real structure - no president or treasurer - with everyone on an equal footing.

Although they were “officially inspired” by the national Minutemen group and both are members, Hilton and Zanna decided to form their own group, which is not affiliated with the national organization.

“We're a local group that likes to work with our local problems and take care of our local problems in our own way,” Zanna said.

Asked what the “local problems” are, Zanna and Hilton voiced their suspicion that developers are trucking in illegal immigrants to build houses.

Zanna and Hilton plan to document their hunches by taking pictures and contacting local and federal authorities.

Zanna said he's also concerned California's gang problems will surface in Mohave County. “We don't have a big problem here,” Hilton said. “I'm sure it's happening, but we don't want it to become a big problem.”

Luis Lopez, president of the Lake Havasu City chapter of LULAC (League of United Latin American Citizens) doesn't have a high opinion of minutemen-type organizations.

“I think they're more racist than anything else,” he said. “They're just using (illegal immigration) as a pretense.”

Zanna replied to the racist charge this way: “I laugh ... they try to play the last card they have.” He said his grandmother was Jewish and placed in a concentration camp during World War II.

Saying racism works both ways, Zanna pointed to a Latino organization, The National Council of La Raza (The Race) and quoted their creed:

“For the Race, everything, outside the Race, nothing.”

Lopez, a Democratic candidate for a Mohave County District 3 seat in the state House of Representatives, believes there is no need for minutemen groups.

“We have agencies and we have people who are supposed to be (enforcing border integrity), otherwise if you let people take matters into their own hands, it's just like the Gestapo.”

Lopez and Zanna do agree on one thing: There is a problem at the border.

“We have a border and it has to be controlled,” Lopez said. “Why did it take 12 million people (believed to be here illegally) to realize we have a problem?”

“They've never taken it seriously. They know they've had a problem for the last 10 years,” Lopez said.

He favors having the National Guard at the border, but “not for doing the Border Patrol's job.”

Lopez does not endorse building a fence between the United States and Mexico. “I don't believe in a wall. I think it serves the same purpose of the Berlin Wall.”

To a point, Lopez also agrees with the Mohave County Minutemen regarding the hiring of illegal immigrants.

“That's a double-edged sword there, because you have some people that honestly hire illegal immigrants that don't know they are illegal and then there's a group that hires illegals knowingly and they'll pay them cash and they don't pay their taxes or anything else,” Lopez said, “and those employers are not only cheating the people but the country, also. They're not loyal Americans.”

“Our government has let us down,” Lopez said. “I can't emphasize that enough.”

Zanna and Hilton said they only want to treat illegal immigrants in the U.S. the way Mexico treats its own illegal immigrants. “There are no rights in Mexico for illegals,” Zanna said.

Beyond constructing physical barriers to prevent illegal immigrants from coming here, Zanna wants to ban free health care, schooling for children of illegals, and “cut down on all the freebies,” he said.

Lopez believes Latinos are not treated well in this country. “As the leader of the world, the United States has to set the pace of how people should be treated,” Lopez said. “We have gone through this from the beginning of our country with different races and we haven't learned a thing.”

Zanna favors a quota system that allows all citizens of the world an equal chance to immigrate to the U.S. “We want to be a melting pot, not one race only,” he said.

Zanna said he'd like to ask each immigrant, “Do you love America? You just don't need to come for the money. ... Stay home, we don't need you.”

Zanna and Hilton are looking for people who want to join the Mohave County Minutemen. “If you want to join us and you're not a wacko, send us a letter and we'll call back ... we don't want racists ... we want average people who say ‘I want to be a little more active in my political life,'” Zanna said.

Their Web site is mohaveminutemen.com and their address is P.O. Box 10508, Golden Valley, AZ 86413.