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More call to get tough on illegals
By Judy Keen, USA TODAY
Wed Apr 19, 12:12 PM ET

Recent demonstrations demanding that immigration laws be eased are fueling new interest in states far from the U.S.-Mexican border in groups that support stricter immigration enforcement.

Membership in organizations in Tennessee, Illinois, Oregon and other states is growing. The Minuteman Project that deploys volunteers along the border to help prevent illegal immigration is forming official chapters across the nation.

Hundreds of people attended a rally this week in Kansas City, Mo., demanding tighter immigration controls. About 400 signed up to join the Mid-America Immigration Reform Coalition, which supports tougher immigration laws, says organizer Joyce Mucci.

The rally was a response to marches that drew thousands of people calling for illegal immigrants to be allowed to stay in the country, Mucci says: "That was a shock, and it got some people fired up."

Other groups that oppose easing immigration laws also report increased membership:
• The Minuteman Project is authorizing state chapters for the first time, says executive director Stephen Eichler. The group, created in 2004, organizes armed patrols on the southern U.S. border and calls in the Border Patrol when members spot people trying to cross illegally. President Bush referred to them in March 2005 as "vigilantes."

Minuteman groups grow

Eichler won't release membership numbers but says about 200,000 people identify themselves as Minutemen. By the end of the year, Eichler says, the group expects to have 500 chapters in states across the country, including Minnesota and elsewhere in the Midwest. Members could help with border surveillance or focus on immigration enforcement in their own communities.

"Over 5,000 people have come forward and said, 'I'll do anything,' " he says. "Right now, about 200 people that we have contacted look pretty serious." Eichler says the group will do background checks to prevent white supremacists from forming chapters.

• The Illinois Minuteman Project, which is patterned after the California-based group, has about 600 members and is growing rapidly, says Rosanna Pulido, who just returned from patrolling the Arizona-Mexico border.

"Our membership is going up every day," she says. "We're getting flooded. Nothing has generated interest like the pro-immigration protests." The group plans a May 4 debate with a proponent of citizenship for illegal immigrants in Chicago and a town hall meeting May 6 in Rockford, Ill.

• The Tennessee Volunteer Minutemen, an independent group, plans a rally May 1 in Chattanooga. Its members have videotaped immigrants participating in some marches, says its director, Carl "Two Feathers" Whitaker, an independent candidate for governor.

Whitaker says his group has 120 active members and is growing. "We don't want to grab ammunition or anything," he says, "but the heat is really turning up on this."

• Jim Ludwick of Oregonians for Immigration Reform, whose members lobby state and federal legislators for stronger enforcement, says his group has grown from a half-dozen people in 2000 to 700 now, with more joining daily. "The phone just rings off the hook with people who are mad," he says.

Son Ah Yun of the Center for Community Change, a national coalition that helped coordinate last week's marches supporting illegal immigrants, says debate is important. "People are taking to the street and really engaging in this process," she says. "What's good is that people want to be heard. There are always two sides to the story."

But she objects to videotaping marchers who support easing immigration laws. "That, I think, is really destructive to the civil process," she says.

States taking action

The debate also is heating up in state capitals:

• On Monday, Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue signed legislation requiring verification of the legal status of immigrants who apply for state benefits, penalizing employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants and requiring police to check the status of people they arrest.

• Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano on Monday vetoed a bill that would have permitted local authorities to arrest illegal immigrants in the state.

Kris Kobach, a law professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City who once advised former U.S. attorney general John Ashcroft on immigration, says interest among Americans who don't live near the border proves that the issue touches every community.

Kobach, who spoke at the Kansas City rally, predicts immigration will be the top issue in this fall's elections.

"It takes something pretty powerful," he says, "to get the average citizen off the sofa and into the streets."