Posted on 07/17/2005 12:05:52 PM PDT by Graybeard58
MORRISTOWN, Tenn. - A volunteer movement that vows to guard America from a wave of illegal immigration has spread from the dusty U.S.-Mexican border to the verdant hollows of Appalachia.
At least 40 anti-immigration groups have popped up nationally, inspired by the Minuteman Project that rallied hundreds this year to patrol the Mexican border in Arizona.
"It's like O'Leary's cow has kicked over the lantern. The fire has just started now," said Carl "Two Feathers" Whitaker, referring to the fabled start of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Whitaker, an American Indian activist and perennial gubernatorial candidate, runs the Tennessee Volunteer Minutemen, aimed at exposing those who employ illegals.
Critics call the movement vigilantism, and some hear in the words of the Minutemen a vitriol similar to what hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan used against Southern blacks in the 1960s.
The Minuteman Project has generated chapters in 18 states - from California to states far from Mexico, like Utah, Minnesota and Maine. The Tennessee group and others like it have no direct affiliation, but share a common goal.
"I struck the mother lode of patriotism or nationalism or whatever you want to call it," said Jim Gilchrist, a Vietnam veteran and retired CPA who co-founded the Minuteman Project 10 months ago. "That common nerve that was bothering a lot of people, but due to politically correct paralysis ... everyone was afraid to bring up - the lack of law enforcement."
At the Department of Homeland Security, whose authority includes patrolling borders and enforcing immigration laws, response to Minuteman-type activism is guarded.
"Homeland security is a shared responsibility, and the department believes the American public plays a critical role in helping to defend the homeland," agency spokesman Jarrod Agen said from Washington. "But as far doing an investigation or anything beyond giving us a heads-up, that should be handled by trained law enforcement."
A group leading patrols of the California border raised concerns from the U.S. Border Patrol last week when they urged volunteers to bring baseball bats, mace, pepper spray and machetes to patrol the border. They backed off the recommendation, but insisted on another weapon when they started patrols Saturday: guns.
"The guns are for one reason - to keep my people alive," said Jim Chase, a former Arizona Minuteman volunteer who is leading the effort.
Gilchrist said people from across the country have been sending him dirt on companies that hire illegal immigrants.
"It is a rampant problem. It is happening in Chicago and Portland, Maine. And Milwaukee and Montana and Idaho. And these people want the government to do something," he said.
The Southeast has the nation's fastest-growing Hispanic population. In Tennessee, the Hispanic population nearly tripled in the last decade.
The Tennessee Minutemen, which plans rallies in Memphis and Nashville and reputedly has heard from at least 120 potential members statewide, insist they are not vigilantes or racists.
"We don't want to project it as a hate group. We don't hate anybody or anything. But there are legal immigrants and illegal," Whitaker said.
In Morristown, a Southern industrial town of 25,000 with a small but burgeoning population of Latinos, some see the Volunteer Minutemen's spiel as race baiting.
"The same sort of dogmatism that racists used against blacks in lower Alabama and across the South, I am seeing the same patterns here," said Thom Robinson, who heads the area's Chamber of Commerce. "They are using it as a racially divisive thing."
Santos Aguilar, executive director with Alianza del Pueblo, a regional Hispanic support group in Knoxville, said he fears the volunteers are "spreading a lot of misinformation and are terrorizing the ethnic community in the area."
Members of the Hamblen County Commission recently suggested that Hispanic immigrants were to blame if property taxes have to be raised next year - though commissioners insisted they were talking only about illegal immigrants.
County Commissioner Tom Lowe, who says "we do not want (all) Hispanics stereotyped as illegal," estimates as many as 85 percent of Hamblen's Hispanics are - and he fears they carry drug-resistant disease.
"We could be two or three aliens away from an epidemic that would sweep through our county and state," the retired pharmacist said.
Hamblen County Mayor David Purkey said, like Lowe, he supports immigration laws, but finds such comments disturbing. "I think you have to be careful when you are expressing your opinion on that, that you don't appear as if you are against diversity as a whole," he said.
Guatemala native Noel Montepeque, who owns a company that provides a variety of blue-collar jobs to Hispanics, said the tone has changed since the first migrant farm workers passed through the area in the 1990s.
"Now they are getting afraid of the many Hispanic folks coming in," Montepeque said. "And we are coming to stay."
Wonder if this was a freudian moment for this paper... should have read Anti-Illegal-Immigration.
"Now they are getting afraid of the many Hispanic folks coming in," Montepeque said. "And we are coming to stay."
NOT ON MY DIME AMIGO...
The guy in this article, Carl "twofeathers" Whitaker, is running for Governor of TN as an independent I think. Anybody know who will most likely be runningas the GOP candidate, and what is his/her position on illegal immigration? The Governor's of these states could so easily stop this if they would just allow local law enforcement to assist with immigration enforcement. I think they have the authority to do that. Right?
I think the anti illegal immigration groups are also anti legal immigration also.
In reality there is not much distinction. A guest worker program and or amnesty would make the illegals into legals, but these groups would still be against the mexican and chinese immigrants.
In some places locals are trying to enforce the law and are being fought by guess who?....The good ole ACLU.
Bull. You folks run to that old liberal standard at the first opportunity.
"Now they are getting afraid of the many Hispanic folks coming in," Montepeque said. "And we are coming to stay."
In reality there is not much distinction. A guest worker program and or amnesty would make the illegals into legals, but these groups would still be against the mexican and chinese immigrants.
Been there, done that, didn't work.
Next.
Hey, I could point out a few choice posts which claim that the Founders wanted a whites-only nation, etc.
Minute Man Simcox will entertain area Kansas Citians this Wednesday p.m. at an invited event given by Zenith Boosters Club. Check it out at jcashill@aol.com.
With all due respect, you are wrong.
"Hey, I could point out a few choice posts which claim that the Founders wanted a whites-only nation, etc."
And it's relevance would be? You can go ahead and treat the party like the politburo all you want but I haven't forgotten who lends them power.
What's the deal, "Cult"? You own a landscaping company? You have more than a citizens interest in this issue. How many illegals do you own?
Whenever I want to teach children a lesson, I find the best way to do it is to give them a taste of what they're serving others. Those in charge of Mexico are definitely children wanting to sit at the grownups table. So here's what we do...
Because of NAFTA a lot of factories were moved just over the border from America to Mexico. Some are closing now because they can't compete with the Chinese. Chinese laborers are cheaper than Mexican laborers. So I say bring the Chinese laborers to the American owned factories in Mexico. We can bring them by ship to the port in San Diego and smuggle them across the border into Mexico. They'll work for cheaper salaries than the Mexicans and we'll save all that money on shipping the finished goods half way around the globe. The Chinese government will like it because they could get rid of millions of Chinese men which they don't have Chinese women to match up with. Mexican men will have to stay closer to home to compete for their own women who just may decide they like the way Chinese men treat them as opposed to the macho effect. And we will get a front row seat to see how the Mexican government handles illegal immigration. Let's start out with say 30 million Chinese men in the first year and see how it goes.
Once upon a time in America, no one was permitted into this country that might actually be carrying a deadly, infectious disease that could kill the public - no more and their children who have never had immunizations of any kind are sitting next to American children in school who are unprepared to face the diseases that we have banished since the 50s and 60s. Also, once upon a time in America, one had to have a relative with a job as a sponsor or a close family friend who actually worked for a living and would agree to provide financially for the immigrant - no longer.
The liberals have seen to it that the Statue of Liberty now means bring us your unskilled, sick, disabled, financially destitute so that we can provide all of the welfare giveaways paid for by the American Taxpayers, against their will.
What's good for the goose is good for the gander. Your scenario works for me.
....disenfranchised and we will enfranchise them so that they can vote for politicians that will, eventually, disenfranchise them again.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.