Thread: New Minuteman chapter stirs unease in fern fields

http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJ ... 060906.htm

June 09, 2006

New Minuteman chapter stirs unease in fern fields

By PATRICIO G. BALONA
Staff Writer
DELAND -- Fern growers and migrant worker advocates are wary of a Minuteman chapter formed in Volusia County last month after Hispanics rallied for immigration reforms.

The group of 75 new members make up the Daytona Beach chapter and monitor illegal immigration and activities throughout the county, said Tim Bueler, director of media relations for the Minuteman Project based in California.

The Volusia chapter is one of 200 forming nationwide after Hispanic rallies denounced a bill passed by the House in December that would make illegal immigrants felons and require a double-layer fence along 700 miles of the U.S.-Mexican border.

They are part of the Minuteman Project's Internal Group, which does not patrol the United States' southern and northern borders. They reconnoiter areas inside the United States for illegal immigrant activity, and in Volusia, the group monitors and targets employers who hire illegals, Bueler said. They obtain information about the operations and then inform the U.S. Immigration Control and Enforcement, Bueler said.

"The rallies brought a lot of pro-American people to the forefront," he said. "They felt compelled to be part of our organization, representing our cause and belief of loving this country and protecting its sovereignty."

Bueler declined to say where the Daytona Beach office is located, or grant access to local contacts, saying only that members work out of their homes.

Fern growers and migrant labor advocates, meanwhile, said Minuteman groups will create an environment of fear that could lead to decreased productivity and hurt the economy of northwest Volusia. Not all Hispanics in agricultural fields are illegal, said David Register, a fern grower and vice-president of Ferntrust, Inc, a Seville cooperative of 15 members who collectively own and operate 350 acres of fern.

"I would think it's discriminating in that they believe all the Hispanic people they see are illegal," Register said. "It's kind of disappointing to me because I think they are people trying to push their political agenda."

Register said he hopes "that not enough people in the area will be participating or joining the group."

"The whole economy of northwest Volusia depends on Hispanic labor," Register said.

And Ana Bolanos, the executive director of the Seville women's group, Alianza de Mujeres Activas(Alliance of Active Women), is worried about the Minuteman chapter because women make up the majority of field workers. Although the group has its rules and regulations, it opens the opportunity for anti-immigrant sympathizers who need an excuse to commit hate crimes against Hispanics, especially women, Bolanos said.

"I can understand their patriotic feelings because it is their country, but why aggressively pursue people who are only helping this country's economy?" Bolanos said. "And they are leaving their American farmers with a labor vacuum they will not fill. Their actions just do not make sense."

The Minuteman Project began in April 2005 with members who patrolled a section of the Arizona border. Members have now become two Minuteman groups -- the Minuteman Project, which stands against illegal immigration, and the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, civilians who continue to patrol the borders.

The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps plans to install a combination of barbed wire, razor wire, and in some spots, steel rail barriers along a 10-mile stretch of private land in southeastern Arizona. Members hope it prompts the federal government to do the same along the entire Arizona border.

President Bush, who has criticized the group for "vigilante" border projects, has pledged to deploy as many as 6,000 National Guard troops to strengthen enforcement at the border. The guardsmen would fill in on some behind-the-lines Border Patrol jobs while that agency's force is expanded.

But the Minuteman Defense Corps members maintain it's not enough. The group's founder, Chris Simcox, has said members want a secure fence and they're starting at the site where his first patrols began in November 2002.

patricio.balona@news-jrnl.com

What a joke!! Unrest in the fern fields of central Florida. Does anyone really give a damn about fern fields?? If it requires illegals to do the work that Americans won't do, then I say turn the damn furn fields into swamp land and start a gator farm!!!