Posted on 01/28/2008 9:37:29 PM PST by NormsRevenge
An anti-illegal immigration group's adopted stretch of highway near a Border Patrol checkpoint is being orphaned.
The California Department of Transportation said the San Diego Minutemen's participation in an Adopt-A-Highway stretch of Interstate 5 poses "a significant safety risk."
"The risk is in the potential for disruption to the operation of the state highway as well as public safety concerns for the traveling public and volunteers in the program," Caltrans district director Pedro Orso-Delgado said Monday. He did not elaborate.
The Minutemen will get another stretch on State Route 52 in San Diego - far from the Border Patrol checkpoint - but even that may prove temporary. Caltrans said it was reconsidering whether the group was eligible for any piece of highway.
"We have received information during the past couple weeks that warrants a closer look at the San Diego Minutemen relative to the eligibility criteria for this program," Orso-Delgado said. "The department will pursue this review in an expeditious fashion."
Caltrans did not elaborate on the review and a spokesman did not respond to a phone call Monday night, but its statement said groups that advocate violence, discrimination or illegal activities cannot participate in the program.
San Diego Minutemen founder Jeff Schwilk did not immediately respond to a phone message Monday night.
In November, Caltrans granted a permit for the Minutemen to tend to trash on a two-mile northbound stretch, north of San Diego, near a checkpoint where Border Patrol agents stop motorists and search for illegal immigrants hiding in cars. Adopt-A-Highway signs were emblazoned with the group's name.
Immigration advocates welcomed Caltrans' decision.
"We said from the get-go that those signs were going down," said Enrique Morones, who heads Border Angels, a group that provides water for people who cross the border illegally in remote areas. "Civility prevails."
The Minutemen boasted on its Web site that it removed 15 bags of trash from the roadside on Jan. 17.
I can only do so much...I am solving the fence problem, the trade problem and putting a bite into the labor problem, plus redistribution of money...
<: <: <:
The definition of a TRUE ENTREPRENUOUR IS—
Let’s go into the shipping business. You supply the ships and the crews and I will supply the ocean.
There wouldn’t be any Caltran workers that aren’t legal. Naw. No Way!
Well, okay... ;-)
I liked that definition.
Id bet the “Border Angels” would be granted the same stretch of highway the Minutemen just got booted from if they asked for it. Up is Down.
I wish I could disagree...
But I have no doubt that is correct.
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