http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/n...18workers.html

Minutemen increase political activities


Group backs candidate, enters migrant camp
By Leslie Berestein
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
May 18, 2006



Day-labor pickup sites in North County have been getting some additional visitors lately, and not the kind who are there to hire anyone.

An anti-illegal immigrant activist group called the San Diego Minutemen and an offshoot group called the Vista Citizens Brigade have been going to day-labor sites in Vista and Carmel Valley to try to block the hiring of day laborers, many of whom are in the country illegally.

They have stepped up their efforts after the pro-immigrant national boycott May 1, an organizer said.

Since that time, San Diego police twice have responded to the Carmel Valley area, most recently yesterday after the San Diego Minutemen attended a news conference on Carmel Valley Road near state Route 56 to endorse Escondido City Councilwoman Marie Waldron for state Assembly. Members of other anti-illegal immigration activist groups, including Save Our State, also attended.

While no one has been arrested, police said, there have been some unpleasant incidents, including a minor verbal confrontation between an activist and a police officer yesterday. After the news conference, which also was attended by Bruce Ruff, a candidate for sheriff, several of the activists entered the adjacent McGonigle Canyon to scout around the homeless migrant worker camps there, police said.

Many of the homeless were hiding in the bushes by the time the activists came, because some day laborers who were outside the camp used cell phones to call those in the canyon.

“We hid in the hills, because they were going in there with their cameras, filming,” Aniceto Lopez Millán, 25, a homeless farmworker and day laborer, said in the canyon after the activists had gone.


PEGGY PEATTIE / Union-Tribune
Nicholas Melchor from Guerrero, Mexico, was in his makeshift house when the Minutemen arrived. Normally, Melchor works in the fields picking tomatoes.
Lopez said he had previously observed activists approaching the day-labor site above the encampment, getting out of their cars and “asking for papeles (papers), very angrily, very aggressive.”

Jeff Schwilk, who started the San Diego Minutemen last fall, said that his group has not harassed anyone for papers. Schwilk said the activists have been harassed by “hostile” police but that they are not breaking any laws.

“My people are told not to do anything like this,” he said. “They are told not to have any contact with the laborers.”

Instead, Schwilk said, the activists who have gone to the day-labor sites are focused on stopping employers from hiring laborers without checking legal status.

“We're there to inform and keep people from hiring from there,” said Schwilk, 42, a retired Marine. “To inform them they are violating federal law.”

He said the group has been out to the Carmel Valley site twice, once May 2, after visiting the homeless encampments, and again yesterday.

Police have responded on both occasions. The first time, they were there for at least a half-hour, said Florencio Pineda Benitez, a Latino catering-truck owner and longtime legal resident. Pineda said he was harassed and he was asked in Spanish for his papers, as were several day laborers.

“I told them they aren't cops or immigration (agents) to be asking for papers,” said Pineda, who said he has lived in the United States about 30 years. “He yelled in my face, 'I'm American.' I said back, 'I am a resident.' And he said back, 'Go back to Mexico.' ”

Schwilk said he recalled the yelling match, but denied any activists asked Pineda or anyone else there for papers.

Yesterday, a campaign manager for Waldron said the candidate was glad to have the endorsement of the San Diego Minutemen group. Waldron, who is running for the 74th District seat to be vacated by Assemblyman Mark Wyland – who is forced out by term limits – is making illegal immigration a major part of her campaign platform.

Waldron was not specifically aware of any of the group's operations, campaign manager Cynthia Determan said. Determan said the candidate did not go into the canyon with the group after her news conference.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Leslie Berestein: (619) 542-4579; leslie.berestein@uniontrib.com