Homemade Homeland Security or HATE: Arizona Citizens Group Set to Patrol U.S.-Mexico Border

An Arizona-based citizens group is recruiting hundreds of volunteers to patrol the border with Mexico this spring, saying that U.S. government has failed to stem the flow of illegal immigrants. Organizers of the MinuteMan Project said on Tuesday that they have signed up 200 people from 29 U.S. states to patrol a stretch of the border in Arizona throughout April to search for illegal aliens and were adding 20 new volunteers a day. "It's the largest neighborhood watch program ever put together by Americans, with the direct aim of challenging the president of the United States to do his job," Chris Simcox told Reuters in a telephone interview from Tombstone, Arizona. Each year, around 1 million illegal immigrants are caught crossing the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border, more than 40 percent of them in the deserts of Arizona. Even more are thought to get through. Volunteers who sign up for the MinuteMan Project, named for militia units who fought in the American Revolution, will camp out for a month on local ranches and public land to spot illegal immigrants crossing a 30-mile stretch of the border in area near the Arizona town of Douglas. Simcox, a local newspaper editor, said that most volunteers have backgrounds in either the military or law enforcement. They plan to report any illegals to the U.S. Border Patrol and "continue to track them until the patrol arrives to apprehend them," he said. Critics say it is a vigilante group, and fear that over-eager volunteers may use firearms to intimidate migrants or harass legal Latino residents. Simcox declined to say whether MinuteMan Project volunteers would be armed, but said that they would act "within state laws... and are not vigilantes. [more]