Protesters lend hand to entrant in distress


By Michael Marizco
ARIZONA DAILY STAR

NACO, Ariz. - Minuteman Project volunteers helped an illegal entrant in distress late Friday. The incident was the first documented encounter between the volunteers and Mexican nationals sneaking across the border, officials said.

The incident happened around midnight when a tired and thirsty illegal entrant who'd been separated from his group approached Minuteman volunteers at the Bible College in Palominas, said U.S. Border Patrol spokesman Andy Adame. Project volunteers have been camping out at the college.

The Border Patrol and human-rights groups have criticized the monthlong Minuteman Project, which is described as a protest of the federal government's inability to control the U.S.-Mexican border.

The agency said the volunteers will do more harm than help. Rights groups say the project has attracted hate groups who only want to use the protest of border enforcement as a pretext to catch illegal entrants.

Officials from both sides of the issue said that Minuteman volunteers proved helpful in the first contact with an entrant.

"In this particular case, it was helping us. In this sole incident, it was a help," Adame said, adding the Border Patrol still doesn't support the Minuteman Project, which involves volunteers stationed along areas on the border looking for illegal entrants.

One case of providing help doesn't make the monthlong protest acceptable, said a member of a border rights group.

"The fact that they encountered a migrant and did the right thing, yes I'm glad. Does it suddenly make them OK in our communities? No," said Kat Rodriguez, an organizer for the Tucson-based Derechos Humanos, a rights group that has spoken out against the project.

Minuteman Project organizer James Gilchrist only mentioned the rescue in passing, saying the entrant was "emaciated and dehydrated."

Border Patrol spokesman Jose Garza said the man surrendered because he was lost and starting to get thirsty. He said the man was deported to Naco, Sonora.

As of Saturday evening, there had been no reports of violence or other problems associated with the Minuteman Project.

On Saturday, about 100 volunteers lined the Naco Highway in front of the Border Patrol station. The majority in the group were senior citizens who at intervals would break into chants like "Viva La Migra!" in support of the Border Patrol.

Elsewhere, about 150 people, including volunteers for the Minuteman Project and their supporters, chanted "Hey, hey, ho, ho, illegal aliens got to go" and sang "God Bless America" as they filed past the Border Patrol station in Douglas. Some of the group had attended a similar rally earlier in the day in nearby Naco.

But volunteers have also begun operating in the desert, said Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever.

South of Bisbee, about 20 people operated four observation posts on Border Road. Other volunteers were expected to watch for illegal entrants in other areas along the border.

Some, watching Mexico with binoculars, declined to give their names. Others unloaded an ATV from the back of a pickup while Nancy Hubbard sat in a folding chair under a beach umbrella peeling an orange and watching the border fence 20 yards away.

She said she thinks there's already too many illegal entrants in the United States but that she understands why people cross illegally when they're hungry.

Hubbard, from Temecula, Calif., said what makes her angry is that Mexican President Vicente Fox "won't share a little of the wealth with his people."

In Naco, the Border Patrol posted two BORSTAR - Border Patrol Safety, Trauma and Rescue - agents to watch the crowd, which cheered for the Border Patrol while criticizing President Bush for offering up a guest-worker plan and not doing enough to stop illegal entry.

Dottie Dalton, 66, from Murrieta, Calif., said she's out to protest Bush trying to negotiate a guest-worker plan for Mexicans.

The plan Bush announced in 2004 would allow those already living in the United States to eventually apply for citizenship. The plan hasn't been mentioned by the White House much since, but has been supported by Department of Homeland Security officials as a way to manage the border.

Shaena Engle, who turns 76 today, got around at the Naco event in his motorized scooter because of his health problems. But the Phoenix man is game to protest for one day, he said.

"It's not like I'm going to lie down in the middle of the street," he said.

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