LAT: Border Activists Draw Line in Suburbs (Minutemen target employers)

[DeepModem Mom]

Border Activists Draw Line in Suburbs
The Minuteman Project extends its reach to a Virginia town to fight illegal immigration.
By Nicole Gaouette, Times Staff Writer


HERNDON, Va. — The cluster of middle-aged men and women dressed in jeans and sweat shirts, with cameras and video recorders at the ready, peered across the street. Tourists are common in the Washington area, but these people weren't looking for monuments.

The group, a newly formed chapter of the Minuteman Project, had its cameras trained on about 100 men gathered at an informal day-labor site in this northern Virginia town. When a truck or car pulled up, they snapped shots in earnest. The activists were there to photograph prospective employers, note license plate numbers and business names, and report them to the authorities, though it was unclear whether any official action would follow.

The Minuteman Project, controversial for its border patrols, is trying something new: looking to fight illegal immigration in the nation's interior by targeting employers. The group is organizing in communities including Atlanta, Salt Lake City, Chicago, Indianapolis and Charlotte, N.C., monitoring and reporting businesses that hire suspected undocumented workers.

The self-appointed border security group is finding willing recruits. Since the Arizona-based Minuteman Project began in April, more than 20 chapters have sprung up across the country, said Chris Simcox, the group's national president. He said the organization had "well over 100 requests" from people interested in starting their own chapters....


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-daylabor28nov28,0,3861221.story?coll=la-home-nation

[marmar]

1. Immigrants: The gays and lesbians of 2006...

Not that the zealots on the right are done with gays and lesbians, but they've found a trendy new group to focus their vitriolic hate on for the new year.

:puke:

[havocmom]

2. They also need to go to the boardrooms of the corporations

who contract out for labor. Start at the top and throw illegal employers (and payroll tax evaders) in the slammer.

It is a Trickle Down problem. Starts at the very top.

[warrens]

3. Why don't they just stand outside a Tyson chicken farm?

Oh, wait, Tyson and Wal-Mart and Perdue and those guys are REPUBLICANS who DONATE HUGE AMOUNTS TO BUSH. Better to pick on little guys.

[Canuckistanian]

4. They're getting close to being investigated

The Shrub administration is definitely pro-cheap-labor, and immigrants, especially illegal ones are a valued commodity.

Now they're going after the benefactors in this little scheme - unscrupulous employers(aka Bush supporters).

Ever wonder why there's a deafening silence about immigration from this admin, other than empty talk?

In fact, the one thing they have done is to propose a "Guest Worker" program. Even MORE illegal immigrants!

But the Fox News crowd don't realize they're barking up the wrong tree.

And these "Minutemen" are getting dangerously close to the truth.

[bikeboy]

6. My Dad just sent me

a rethuglican talking point memo on how imigration is the fall of America...It just set me back.

He doesn't get what a distraction it is from what is really screwing up his retirement. He relys on medications to stay alive and the new med package was really no help to him. His wife works at Wall Fart,no beinfits...nuf said...He lives in up-State N.Y. and his heating bill just went through the roof (oh yah..he's on a fixed income and I'm sure there's plenty of room for that increase there!)

To top it off 2 of his grand children are of Mexican heritage. I'm waiting for the Jew bashing scrit so I can besure he takes my kids underwing too...

[Toots]

43. Just say to him "Hush and enjoy your tax cuts"

If it is all about Tax Cuts I don't want to hear them bitch about anything else, period...Free Market will fix everything.....Enjoy being a republican while the rest of the world suffers because of it...

[Ian David]

12. Remember The Great Freeper Purge of 2005 over Bush's Immigration issue?

Immigration is to Freepers what Israel is to DUers.

If you want to see two Republicans beat the crap out of one another, start them arguing about Immigration.

[leftstreet]

5. Well, targeting employers is better than targeting illegals. n/t

[mainegreen]

7. Good for them.

Contrary to what people seem to think here illegal immigration is still illegal. These people are whistleblowers of a sort.

[CottonBear]

8. Self-appointed mercenaries do not have law enforcement authority. n/t

[mainegreen]

15. Um, when did you need to be law enforcement to take photos?

Or to report crimes?

[Bridget Burke]

9. Too bad so many Minuteman leaders are racist.

And too bad they didn't target the employers from the beginning. However, a city is much more comfy than the Border.

[Sandpiper]

16. Praising the efforts of Xenophobes and White Supremacists?

How progressive of you.

[mainegreen]

19. Attacking the messenger and not the message?

How original of you.

[Sandpiper]

20. Nice side step

And as usual, the strongest support for the Minutemen at DU comes from those who live farthest from our southern border.


And on edit: welcome to my ignore list. I've no desire to continue this conversation and no use for sympathizers of the white supremacist movement.

[mainegreen]

22. Perhaps thats because we have the least to loose

economically from the loss of illegal cheap labor, or perhaps we've seen how properly regulated immigration helps curb poverty and build community among immigrants?

PS: We get a lot of Latin American workers up here too, it just that it's legal, so they make more money, and then return home, usually to return the next year.

[Bridget Burke]

24. How do you know they are legal?

Last year, Border Patrol agents "visited" Portland & busted 10 people.

www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0130-05.htm

(I have heard that Portland police don't regularly ask about immigration status since they would prefer crime victims & witnesses be unafraid to speak out. Houston's police have the same policy. Of course, the Racist Creeps are offended.)

And Rep Rich Cebra says "illegal aliens" are Maine's worst problem. (Glad to know that there are plenty of Racist Creeps outside Texas.)

www.asmainegoes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=18660

[Sequoia]

27. No one takes photos of Wal Mart.

These men who stand outside waiting to get picked up for work are basically decent guys who have families to feed. The ones who pick them up can't just go down to the labor or union hall like in the past.

So I say if it bothers you so much maybe you should go down and get hired to do some job no one really wants to do. Can't sully those lily white soft hands of yours can we?

[mainegreen]

29. Ooooh, great argument.

I'm not saying those guys aren't decent guys. I'm not even saying we shouldn't let them into the country to work. All I'm saying is illegal immigration is bad, both for us, them and the US. The act of photographing people illegally hiring illegal migrant workers is OK. Good for them. In the end it will help everyone out more (including the migrants), except for the people who are doing the hiring.

Undocumented workers don't have rights. They won't enforce their rights. So are you saying its ok to let people hire these workers for $2/hr hauling asbestos, working fields with pesticides, or working in sweat shops is what you want? Seems a bit, oh, republican of you.

And people do take photos of wal-mart. You don't think photos are taken during the construction of these super centers, do you? Perhaps to catch them in a little environmental no-no? Taking photos of illegal activity in public places as evidence is a right. Don't like it? Tough crap.

Oh, and these lily white hands have swung a sledge hammer and dug trenches in pouring rain for 12 hours while all the wussy construction workers waited inside with their lattes, waiting until the rain stopped. I've done the jobs no one wants to do and gotten paid nothing for it, and done the jobs no one wants to do and made more money an hour than most people make in a week.

[Sequoia]

30. Two bucks an hour is it? How do you know and how do you know

they do this work you mentioned? So you work for nothing do you, and I guess the job you did that made more money in an hour than most people make in a week sounds like your a drug dealer and maybe you don't want those illegals steping into your turf. Hardee har har!

[mainegreen]

31. Well, lets see

My brothers wife's family owns an apple orchard, so there have been conversations about this subject. That, and I don't live in a cave.

"Working for nothing" is an expression.

Drug Dealer? I'll give you a two finger salute for that. There are some seriously crappy jobs out there that pay big bucks that are perfectly legal.

Seriously people, your arguments are about as good as a freepers.

1) These people have a right to take photos of people illegally hiring undocumented workers in public places. It doesn't matter if their republican, democrat, white supremacists, black panthers, or the spanish inquisition!
2) These people are here illegally. Period. The law is the law. We all go off half bent with the abuse the repukes are doing to the law, how come we're all wishy washy on the law here?
3) You are not doing the migrants any favors by not taking a stand against what is being done to these people. If substandard wages without job protection are bad elsewhere in the world, why the hell is it ok here with these people?

[bleedingheart]

10. I bet ya that the business owners are typically republicans

they put money into the hands of GOP candidates who spout anti-immigration rhetoric...but on the other hand they have the extra cash to donate because they are paying some poor illegals below the minimum wage for their labor...

Meanwhile their bought and paid for GOP shill will rant on and on about how illegals are evil and bad...and will incite these "minutemen" to vote for them....all the while they are campaigning on that dirty money.

[Ian David]

11. The North American Minuteman Border Legionaires Association (NAMBLA)

They should just park outside Wal-Mart. It would be easier.

[Robert Oak]

13. sounds good

Whatever one thinks of the minutemen, the reality they are raising this issue...which is good, although going after business and they need to go after big business especially is a better strategy than freaking people
out with citizen border patrol.

and with the "permaslave" guest worker VISA, controlled by corporations,
exposing big business wanting to further reduce wages and workers rights
is welcome as far as I'm concerned.

Personally I think we'd be better off with earned amnesty per each case than a guest worker visa program.
For ex: felony? deported
been here 20 years and have a business? green card
and so on.

That just enables employers to further abuse illegals by controlling their VISA status and not enabling them to "advance" into US society once they learn the language and obtain skills.

i.e. land of opportunity - NOT.

[Sandpiper]

18. Hooray for the Mexican Haters Club!

Said Minuteman co-founder Chris Simcox of Mexican Immigrants:


"These people don't come here to work. They come here to rob and deal drugs,"

and

"...we need the National Guard to clean out all our cities and round them up. They are hard-core criminals. They have no problem slitting your throat and taking your money or selling drugs to your kids or raping your daughters and they are evil people,"



Pardon me if I don't join in your kudos to them.

[Robert Oak]

21. there are many gangs

But, that said, the reason they are popular is because of labor arbitrage.

If Democrats would wake up to this issue and stop supporting the destruction of American jobs, these guys would be sidelined.

And yes that is a BS comment but still in the big picture Dems need
to come up with something that America as a whole and as a whole
isn't racist and is concerned with labor arbitrage, is going to endorse.

Permaslave or amnesty isn't going to cut it.

You'll also have to show me that quote in context. There are white supremacists who have grabbed onto these issues but I would claim they are in the minority, but they are there!

I run an activist group on these sorts of labor issues and am constantly banning them or blowing them off and so on, you are right they exist..
but the issue they have attached themselves to real and unfortunately their alternative agenda is clouding the real issue.

[Sandpiper]

23. Link to the full article

The Minutemen and the Media
(Mainstream news overlooks vigilante group's ties to white supremacists)


http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=19008

[Robert Oak]

25. oh christ Southern poverty law center

They have been repeatedly discredited.

Sorry, I'm sure there are white supramists around...think about the motivation to sit there in blazing heat patroling a border for free...
but many are ranchers and others on the borders whose business and property are being destroyed.

but, a lot of this "racist" mantra is just BS for open borders, which is insane.

What can I say, I think the minutemen are trying to keep them out, but believe me there are many who take on this issue and frankly,
I'd like to deport them!

I mean the racists are there, it's real, I've run into many of them myself..
and repeatedly say "ban them" and get them the fuck out of here and so on.

They are ruining the focus on this issue and causing people to listen to the "racist" mantra instead of realizing the real crisis on labor economics. Fortunately or not, Katrina no bid contracts, bussing out the black and bussing in illegals to do the work is helping to raise the real issue.

But, Southern poverty law center is pathetic, they repeatedly put out false information and biased information and they are not credible due to this. Repeatedly they have been discredited and investigated and to me, they give "liberal" a bad name at this point. You cannot just make up BS to advance whatever agenda your backers are funding. It's just as bad as Grover Norquist.

But, all we have in terms of policy are the conservative republicans and "big business" from Democrats. Not a single liberal is presenting solutions that are based on labor economics and fair.

I'm for "earned green cards", no "permaslave" guest worker visas and securing the borders 100% and punishing big time businesses violating labor laws and using illegal labor as a subsidy to exploit.

Earned green cards on a case by case basis I think is the only fair thing to do. The US has basically presented a case to illegals that it's not a big deal to cross the border. They are here, working, adding to the community and they should just be given green cards and a path to citizeship and that stops the labor exploitation.
On the other hand, there are true criminals, felons, those "working the system" for social services and so forth who should be deported..
but, I'm for a uniform set of critera and each case evaluated based on that criteria to give them green cards.

[Bridget Burke]

41. When was the Southern Poverty Law Center discredited?

Please illuminate us.

Actually, the "Earned Green Card" seems an interesting idea. But too many of the Minutemen are racists--I doubt they would agree with you.

[Robert Oak]

46. hi

Hey, they don't agree with me that's fer sure and then on the liberal side, all I here is "racist" with zero and I mean zero policy beyond ones that big business loves. One of the reasons is they think it won't work is it will encourage others to break the laws and it won't if 1st they do not enforce the border laws, employment laws.


They are right, immigration policy, which is a major component of labor economics (keeping wages middle class and so on) is being completely ignored.

(I ignore the racist thing, truly I have only seen this as a sideline
issue, the mainstream groups I have yet to find any true white supramist in power, although there are there and there are groups out there with them, not the main ones who are focused on this issue such as FAIR and numbersusa.com and some others (VDARE I have read outright racist articles from and a few others)

put together a true immigration policy like Canada and those who are here illegally who meet the criteria get a green card.

Discredited SPLC:
Harper's magazine, 2000 time frame, wrote an article about biased reports "digging up" hate groups with no evidence and most importantly never giving any of the money they raised to the victims...
money was the big scam (don't have a link but you can probably get it via library)


then scroll down to controversy and others are mentioned
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Poverty_Law_Center


I have dug into them previously and have to agree, I am fairly up on economics and I recall seeing a study that was so full of holes with respect to labor economics and to me, they biased the statistics.

[Bridget Burke]

47. Please find a source other than Wikipedia.

It's far too vulnerable to tampering.

[Robert Oak]

48. the references are not

Harpers is one and there are other references.

Look Harpers is not exactly a conservative rag and they blast the organization.

[mitchum]

49. Harper's ran a very revealing expose of Morris Dees' FOR PROFIT...

organization. Unfortunately, he is just a fearmongering huckster.

[Sequoia]

26. Sounds like what Hilter said about the Jews doesn't it?!

[kineneb]

14. hey you MM guys- check out the growers in CA!

Bet you will find lots of your illegals there! Of course you really like that cheap lettuce and fruit, so you are targeting places in the east (well, east of the CA boarder, anyway). Amazing how personal economy gets in the way of your little crusade. Guess illegal workers are ok, as long as they keep your food costs down.

Buttheads, all.

[Hobarticus]

17. Dear Minutemen: get a JOB, and a LIFE

and contribute to the economy and the planet, in a productive fashion.

Thanks.

[yellowcanine]

28. No matter the time or the place there are always neighborhood busybodies

who will jump at the chance to spy on their neighbors under the cover of some righteous cause. That is all this is. These snoops don't give a flying fig about the jobs that the immigrants are supposedly taking or any of the other immigrant issues either.

[Realityhack]

36. True.

they don't care they are just racist.

But I am all for their right to be neighborhood busybodies.

[DeaconBlues]

32. It used to be that poor people from rural areas of Virginia and

West Virginia could get decent paying jobs in construction, etc. in the burbs of D.C. like Herndon. I myself worked construction there right after high school and before going off to the military.

Thanks to illegal immigration, this opportunity for poor people who have the misfortune of also being citizens is almost gone.

[salin]

33. wonder if they will catch folks snagging workers for any congr.

.. remember how anti-immigrant wacko Tancredo was found to have employed illegal immigrants to do renovation work on his home... in his sputtering when being called on it he mentioned how expensive remodeling was.. (wierd dodge by admitting the value - to his pocket book - of illegal immigrant labor...)

[salin]

34. Here in Indy - there was a pickup location about two blocks

from my house. Haven't seen folks waiting for jobs there in the past couple of months.

If I notice that they are back, maybe I will hand them a few disposable cameras - so if folks come to take pictures - they can be faced with folks taking pictures of them taking pictures.

[Pharlo]

39. If you REALLY want to have fun with them....

Find out where the Vigilantes Against Immigrants are parking their vehicles. Remove the license plates from their vehicles, place them on a 'potential employer' vehicle, let them get visual 'proof of illegal 'hiring practices', replace license plates on original owners vehicle....

Question: Would any of the Vigilantes Against Immigrants even recognize their own license plate numbers? If not, wouldn't they have an interesting conversation with the Immigration Authorities?

[DeaconBlues]

42. so you advocate supporting illegal activities (hiring illegal immigrants)

with more illegal actions? Way to go.

[Realityhack]

35. Hmmm... (puts on flame proof suit)

Ok. These people are racist wakos. Given.

But it seems to me that turning in people who use illegal labor is a realitively reasonable thing to do.
I am not saying they are dooing it for a good reason or anthing like that. But they have chosen an issue and found a legal peaceful way to go about pushing it.

Illegal labor has plenty of detremental effects, both on the workers and on people here who try to compete without it.

We all got excited when walmart got busted for using illegal labor... if they expanded this to whistle blowing on large corporate operations how would you feel about it?

The fact is this IS illegal. No mater what you think of what 'should' be our imigration policy these people are currently here illegaly and it is illegal to hire them.

If this was a 'neiborhood watch' aimed at getting drug dealers arrested I bet we would see more positive attatuedes twards it.

I don't like that they are racist, I don't particularly like our immigration law... I would not participate in what they are doing. But I have to say, if they are just taking photos and writing down licence plates... this is peaceful assistance to the police in enforcing the law.

[Megahurtz]

37. Wing-Nut-Jobs with guns in "The Burbs".

Scary.:scared:

[Maggie_May]

38. I didn't listen to Bush did anyone hear him say

they were going after the companies that hire illegals? I couldn't bring myself to listen to his bullshit.

[NuttyFluffers]

40. well, they are learning. slowly, but learning.

maybe one of these days they'll actually figure out that it's more of an institutionalized exploitation of the desperate pitted against each other for the benefit of the elites.

and they seemed to have swapped some guns for cameras...

i guess we have to take our enlightenment victories in very small increments. baby steps, eventually these people will get it, perhaps.

[chat_noir]

44. Stalking the Day Laborers

Border-patrolling Minutemen turn inland in their fight against illegal immigrants. What's the real goal?

The Minutemen could be heard before they were seen. First came the bullhorns barking "This is America, not Mexico" and "No work today. The Minutemen have arrived." Then the group of two dozen men and women, holding U.S. flags and cameras in their hands, turned the corner and started bearing down on Hispanic workers waiting for jobs outside the Macehualli day-labor center in northern Phoenix, Ariz. Sensing trouble, some took refuge behind the gates of the center, and others melted away down side streets. As the laborers fled, the protesters tried to take pictures of their faces. "This is our country!" shouted a Minuteman. "We are under invasion."

Salvador Reza, 54, a project coordinator for the center, called 911, and several minutes later the police arrived and defused the confrontation. "It was starting to become dangerous," he says. "They wanted to create violence and then blame it on the laborers."

Although the demonstrators denied having violent intent, they surely had plans for any photographs they could take of laborers being hired on the street. The pictures would have been sent to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and posted on websites like wehirealiens.com The hope was that doing so would put the heat on U.S. employers who hire some of the 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. and on the immigrants themselves, forcing them out of business.

The campaign, Operation Spotlight, is a new--and some fear dangerous--tactic by the self-named Minutemen, the anti- illegal-immigrant group that in April began standing watch on the Arizona-Mexico border to intercept people crossing into the U.S. The group has caught few border jumpers but generated lots of attention for its cause and is now turning its focus in from the border, staging Operation Spotlight protests not only in Phoenix but also in the California cities of Laguna Beach, Lake Forest and San Bernardino as well as Herndon, Va. There are plans for demonstrations at day-labor centers in Alabama, New York and Tennessee.

...

Until Congress decides, the Minutemen are likely to keep showing up at labor centers to take pictures, and the immigrants will keep coming to look for jobs. What happens between them will continue to make witnesses queasy, not just because of the looming risk of violence but also because of a sense that the system is badly broken. "This is America," says Keenan Strand, owner of the McDonald's restaurant across the street from the Macehualli center. "You can't just walk up to someone with brown skin, photograph them and demand their papers." For now, it appears, you can.


http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1134748,00.html

[OregonBlue]

45. Can't believe I'm agreeing with the Minutemen.

I guess I'm a minority here at DU and I don't like the Minutemen but I am worried about illegal immigration. It used to be that illegals took jobs that no one wanted but, that's not true any more. Go to any construction site here in Oregon and at least 1/2 of the laborers are Mexican or Central American. They are paid less than their American counterparts but still paid quite well for their work. I live in Ranch/Fruit country. When I was a kid, all the "pickers" were white. Now they are ALL Latins. Not only that, most of the ranchers around here now have Mexican foremen and permanent ranch employees. They claim they can't afford to hire Americans for those jobs but most of them are doing very well. Some of the richest people around in fact.

American corporations want nothing more than to bust the unions here and hiring illegals for little money is one of the main platforms of that effort.

Instead of exporting their corporations to Mexico, they are importing Mexican workers. At least that is the result of this type of hiring. If the jobs are here and no one is going to do anything to them for hiring illegals, they will hire them at less than the prevailing wage and overall wages for American laborers will continue to slide.

Look what happened in New Orleans. Those big no-bid contractors were hiring illegals instead of paying New Orleans residents who's lives were devastated.

I am not a racist. I have spent a great deal of time in Mexico, I love the country and the people but I think we need to confront this issue.

As a bleeding heart liberal, it's hard to not want the very best for the people of this country no matter where they are from but, I am concerned for American workers.

Dems will not truly confront this issue because they are afraid of loosing the Hispanic vote. So, what's the answer? Mexico is a mess. Crime is out of control, corruption is worse than ever. Mexico needs to deal with those problems and get their country on track or this problem will never be solved.

I don't have an answer but I think we have to come up with a sane policy that protects American jobs and helps Mexico create a viable economy of their own!