Minutemen met by peaceful protesters

SuburbanChicagoNews.com ^ | 02.26.06 | Nathaniel Zimmer

[Coleus]

Minutemen met by peaceful protesters

MICHAEL R. SCHMIDT / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Demonstrators protest outside The Centre of Elgin on Saturday, where the Illinois Minutemen group held its "No Amnesty" meeting.

MICHAEL R. SCHMIDT / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Special police tactical vehicles park along Fulton Street in anticipation of possible trouble during protests outside the Illinois Minutemen's meeting Saturday at The Centre of Elgin.

ELGIN — With the police a notable but not overwhelming presence, a meeting of the Illinois chapter of the Minuteman Project came off without a hitch Saturday afternoon, while not far away, a mixed but mainly Hispanic crowd gathered for what organizers called a celebration of the city's diversity.  The quiet formed a marked contrast to a tense November meeting of about 100 Minuteman supporters that drew an estimated 75 to 100 protestors and led police to call in 40 to 50 officers in riot gear from two dozen area communities.

There were an equal number of officers from as many agencies on hand Saturday, according to police, but they were spread out inside and around The Centre, where more than 100 Minuteman backers met. Attendees heard from several speakers and watched a video in which illegal immigration was blamed in part upon an "unholy alliance" of socialists, communists, extreme liberals, liberation theologists and the Council on Foreign Relations. About half the crowd was from Elgin.  On the recreation side of the facility, it was just another weekend afternoon, with children splashing around in the pools.

The Minuteman Project garnered national attention in April when members began patrols along the border with Mexico in an effort to stop illegal crossings. Outside The Centre on Kimball Street, a half-dozen or so protestors from Elgin, Chicago and elsewhere waved signs and chanted slogans.

"Smash racism; one land, one people; smash the border," read the sign held by Juan Velasquez, 44, a resident of Elgin since 1968 who works for an insurance company. Minuteman supporters offered slogans of their own on T-shirts that read: "Vigilantes? Nah ... Just think of it as 'undocumented' Border Patrol." Under that were the words: "Making our politicians responsible for their actions."

Separate diversity meeting

Meanwhile, at Templo Calvario church on the corner of East Chicago and Geneva streets, perhaps 150 or so gathered to hear from Elgin City Councilman Juan Figueroa and Republican state Rep. Ruth Munson of Elgin, among others. The gathering was organized as "a positive response to a simultaneous meeting of the Minutemen," according to a press release from the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights.  George Irizarry, chairman of the Elgin Latino Political Action Team, intimated the gathering was meant to register opposition to the Minuteman Project while avoiding confrontation. The last meeting wound up looking like "a riot" in the media, he said.

"I don't want to comment about the Minutemen," said Irizarry, 49, an attorney. "I'm enjoying my day of diversity."

Julio Lopez, 50, a general contractor and Elgin resident for "25 wonderful years" said he knew nothing about the Minutemen and had come because "it's good to get the community together."

Figueroa often goes out of his way to say he represents all Elginites, not just Hispanics, and is not known for courting controversy. He said he was "thrilled" to see Laotians, blacks, whites and Hispanics in one place. The closest he would get to criticizing the Minutemen was to question the value of "just bringing people together to be angry."

Cite broken immigrant laws

Among the Minuteman supporters on hand at The Centre was Ed Kitners, 45, who lives just outside Elgin in unincorporated Cook County. He passed out about a hundred fliers advertising the meeting, he said. Kitners strongly recommended the videotape shown at the gathering, which he said was the work of The John Birch Society. 

"This country has a problem with our immigration laws being broken and no one is doing anything about it," said Kitners, a local landlord and one-time library board candidate, in an interview earlier this week. "Children are being searched at airports yet the border is wide open."  Dan Kairis, of South Elgin, who recently ran for Elgin Township supervisor as an independent, said illegal immigrants overcrowd area schools and increase the tax burden on other residents because they require additional services.  "The Minutemen are continually called racist," said Kairis, 55, who calls himself semi-retired and occasionally substitute teaches. "But if it was a matter of we just don't like Mexicans, that doesn't make us racist, it makes us nationalist."

"How can it be bigotry against Mexicans?" he asked. "The Minutemen have never ever said anything about legal immigrants."  Rick Jones, 51, a landlord in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago, said he became concerned about illegal immigration because of crime and gang activity where he lived.  "The Latin Kings were the real government there," said Jones, who called himself a political independent who is liberal on some issues and conservative on others.  Not everyone at the meeting was a hard-core Minuteman backer.

Jerry Nowak, 58, a 28-year Elgin resident, said he thinks illegal immigration is "a big problem," although he said he wasn't sure how much of a problem it is in Elgin, where at least a third of the population is Hispanic. Nowak, a tool-and-die maker, said he came to find out more about the Minuteman agenda, and that it isn't the overall level of immigration that concerns him, "it's the illegals."

Tuition bill decried

At the meeting, Rosanna Pulido, director of the Illinois chapter of the Minuteman Project, railed against recent legislation that gave children of illegal immigrants the ability to attend state universities at cheaper, in-state tuition rates.  "We vote for somebody without knowing their voting records," said Pulido, 49, who is of Mexican descent but whose father "did not want us to learn Spanish." A Chicago resident who lives in the Lincoln Square area, Pulido is a former 911 call-taker who runs a word-of-mouth transportation service for seniors and spent time on the border with the Minutemen in April.  Having spent a year in Mexico as a missionary, she said she worries about the culture that Mexican immigrants bring with them to America.  "I kind of, like, understand the culture a little more than the average person," she said. "They're bringing a culture of corruption. It's kind of passed by, like it's not a big deal."

Fauschenberger defends bill

State Sen. Steve Rauschenberger, an Elgin Republican and candidate for lieutenant governor, voted for the in-state tuition bill. He was invited to but could not attend the diversity event at Templo Calvario because he was scheduled to be in southern Illinois, he said. He sent representatives, including his wife.  Rauschenberger said the Minutemen "started out raising some important issues" and that he supported them when they were "embarrassing the federal government with lawn chairs and cell phones" on the border.  Nevertheless, he said he thinks the group is wrong about the in-state tuition bill and other policy questions.  "The effort to ratchet up everything into a controversy over immigration is a mistake," he said. "They're so interested in making their point they lose track of the nuances."

[nutmeg]

ping

[farmer18th]

Amnesty for illegals? Wait a minute... think about it. Why not amnesty if you build without a permit? Amnesty if you don't pay your taxes? Amnesty if you tell the OSHA inspector at your small business to take a hike?

These Mexican illegals are really on to something.

[Euro-American Scum]

Vigilantes on the border BTTT.

[nutmeg]

Yeah, I like the amnesty for not paying taxes idea! Where do I sign up? ;-)

(just kidding)

[lowbridge]

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