Thread: Police Keep Close Eye On Border Vigilantes

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Handful Of Volunteers Show Up To Watch Border
Volunteer Spotters Outnumbered By Demonstrators

POSTED: 11:25 am PDT July 17, 2005
UPDATED: 12:10 pm PDT July 17, 2005

CAMPO, Calif. -- Volunteer spotters are expected to take up positions along the Mexico border between Jacumba and Tecate for a second day Sunday to report crossings as part of a campaign to draw attention to illegal immigration.

According to authorities monitoring the action, only about six citizen volunteers took part in the effor.

Organizer Jim Chase, a 58-year-old retired postal worker and Vietnam veteran who took part in the Minuteman Project along the border in Arizona in April, said he had expected about 100 volunteers.

Chase also said the number of volunteers Saturday was higher than the official count, and he expected the patrols to grow.

The idea is to position people along a sparsely populated, 25-mile stretch of border to watch for and report illegal crossings, Chase said.

The volunteers were dogged by a larger contingent of demonstrators -- estimates ranged from around 30 to more than 100 -- who oppose the idea of civilians, some of them armed, doing the job of law enforcement.

Chase, who lives in Oceanside and set up shop Saturday near Campo, plans to continue the effort through Aug. 8.

"As the media gets out the word and people realize that I'm not a lunatic, people should start flocking," he told the Los Angeles Times Saturday.

Friends of the Border Patrol, based in Chino, plans a similar operation starting Sept. 16 -- Mexican Independence Day.

Another group, part of the Minuteman Project, plans to patrol the entire southern border starting in October.

Temperatures in the rugged country east of San Diego were around 100 degrees Saturday, and there were no reports of volunteers witnessing any illegal border crossings.

Volunteer border watcher Jack Schmidt, of San Marcos, told the North County Times he was in favor of legal immigration, but illegal immigration was another matter.

"My wife is a Chinese national, and we've spent the past two years trying to get her resident status legally," Schmidt said. "For people who wait their turn and do it right, it's frustrating to see people circumvent the process."

Activists with the group Gente Unida -- "People United" in Spanish -- have portrayed the volunteers as xenophobic and racist.

"Immigrants suffer way too much and contribute enormously to the labor market," Avery Wear, a social worker from San Diego who helped start Gente Unida, told the North County Times. "The workers have to unite. The Minutemen have become a fascist group."

Along the entire U.S.-Mexico border between June 2004 and last month, U.S. authorities caught nearly 735,000 people of Mexican origin trying to get into the country illegally, according to the Border Patrol.

"Immigrants suffer way too much and contribute enormously to the labor market," Avery Wear, a social worker from San Diego who helped start Gente Unida, told the North County Times. "The workers have to unite. The Minutemen have become a fascist group." Along the entire U.S.-Mexico border between June 2004 and last month, U.S. authorities caught nearly 735,000 people of Mexican origin trying to get into the country illegally, according to the Border Patrol.

Then, Mr. Avery Wear, please tell your social work clients "suffering" here in the USA to leave. This is obviously not a good place for an illegal alien to be. They are not welcome; they do not "contribute" enormously to the labor market; and the American People want them to leave and not return.

You can unite illegal alien workers all day long, but they have no voice here; no one is listening; and no one cares. That, Sur, is the Bottom-Line. They need to return to their home countries and you need to go with them. There you can unite them where they have a voice, where their leaders are paid to listen and they can be amongst each other where they all care.

See how that works, Mr. Avery Wear!! Your sing song is Wear-ing thin Mr. Wear. No one here cares Mr. Wear. It's not our duty to care; it's not our job to care; we have moral or ethical reason to care. Take your band of illegals and leave the country....now.