Minuteman Project supporters fed up with illegal immigration
By AARON CLAVERIE,Staff Writer
Editor's note: This story focuses on interviews with supporters of the Minuteman Project. Tomorrow's follow-up article will focus on those opposing the action.
TOMBSTONE, Ariz. — As the rising sun took the bite out of what had been a chilly morning, Carol Hand and Stephanie Harris walked toward the growing crowd of volunteers in town for the Minuteman Project, a media-friendly anti-immigration rally/protest that kicked off here Friday.
A group that numbered in the dozens 50 minutes earlier had bulged to hundreds (including scores of reporters and black-on-black Cochise County Sheriff's Department deputies) by 10:30 a.m.
Hand and Harris hail from Phoenix — "northern Mexico," Harris cracked.
They drove south to participate in the project because they are fed up with illegal immigration and a Bush administration that will do nothing to stop it.
"I got fired from a job because of a Mexican woman, a Mexican woman who was born here," Harris said. "I speak fluent Spanish. And I'm talking to this woman in Spanish and she tells me, ‘We're 70 percent of the population and we're only here to take advantage of the U.S.'"
Harris, a compact woman with a shock of white hair that was whipping in the wind as she walked, found out from a supervisor that she was going to be fired from her job at a Costco eye exam office because of the conversation/argument.
She was only working there to help a friend, she said, but the firing seems to have struck a chord, spurring her to join the fledgling movement started by a Tombstone newspaper editor and a retired accountant from California.
The Mexican-American woman claimed Harris told her to speak English but Harris said she never said that.
Hand, a blue baseball cap pulled down tight on her forehead, backed up her friend
"She never even said that," Hand said.
Not that the women don't think people living in the U.S. should speak English.
"When someone asks me if I speak Spanish, I ask them, ‘Do you speak Dutch?'," Hand said.
The problem is twofold, according to the women, who joined hundreds of people standing outside a Masonic hall filled to capacity with Minutemen volunteers. Mexicans want to take back the Southwest and the Bush administration is letting it happen.
Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox aren't just "amigos," they're "bed buddies," Hand said.
At a Phoenix area Pep Boys, Hand said she got into it with a man who told her Mexicans were here first.
She told him Mexico lost the territory in the Mexican-American War.
"But now they're trying to get it back by sheer numbers. That's what Fox said," she said.
Byron Jost, a documentary filmmaker from Utah, happened by and joined the conversation.
He said it's ironic the Mexican government prints comic books to help immigrants enter the U.S. illegally and puts troops at its southern border to keep out Guatemalans.
Hand, who was being filmed by Jost at that point, cranked up the rhetoric, presenting debate points and then countering them without prompting.
"They say it's not Christian to let people die in the desert. I say a humane border is a closed border; zero tolerance," she said. "And U.S. corporations that hire illegals should be jailed and hit with a big fine."
"Look at Wal-Mart," Jost said. "They got a slap on the wrist."
"That's just the tip of the iceberg," Hand replied. "Go to Phoenix and there are illegals working in restaurants, illegals working construction. … They say there is no one to do the work but that's (expletive.) Who the hell picked the lettuce before they came?"
With Jost capturing it all on film, Hand continued, "The network news doesn't want to tell the story because the networks are owned by big corporations that are making money on the back of illegal immigrants."
After presenting her points, Hand excused herself and joined her friend, who had sparked a conversation with a fellow volunteer.
After the meeting, many volunteers headed south to stake out camping spots along the border and help the U.S. Border Patrol spot illegal immigrants.
Organizers said the volunteers, who have been told not to interact with any immigrants they see, could be there as long as a month, forming a human barrier.
Jost said he didn't know if he was going to camp in the desert. He said he's been working for a year on a documentary on the editor of the Tombstone Tumbleweed, Chris Simcox, one of the organizers of the project. He thought he had his film wrapped up before he heard about this event.
"I had to come," he said. "I'm interested in the subject and this is part of the story."
Staff Writer Aaron Claverie can be reached at aclaverie@ivpressonline.com or 337-3419.
http://www.ivpressonline.com/articles/2005/04/02/news/news03.txt
By AARON CLAVERIE,Staff Writer
Editor's note: This story focuses on interviews with supporters of the Minuteman Project. Tomorrow's follow-up article will focus on those opposing the action.
TOMBSTONE, Ariz. — As the rising sun took the bite out of what had been a chilly morning, Carol Hand and Stephanie Harris walked toward the growing crowd of volunteers in town for the Minuteman Project, a media-friendly anti-immigration rally/protest that kicked off here Friday.
A group that numbered in the dozens 50 minutes earlier had bulged to hundreds (including scores of reporters and black-on-black Cochise County Sheriff's Department deputies) by 10:30 a.m.
Hand and Harris hail from Phoenix — "northern Mexico," Harris cracked.
They drove south to participate in the project because they are fed up with illegal immigration and a Bush administration that will do nothing to stop it.
"I got fired from a job because of a Mexican woman, a Mexican woman who was born here," Harris said. "I speak fluent Spanish. And I'm talking to this woman in Spanish and she tells me, ‘We're 70 percent of the population and we're only here to take advantage of the U.S.'"
Harris, a compact woman with a shock of white hair that was whipping in the wind as she walked, found out from a supervisor that she was going to be fired from her job at a Costco eye exam office because of the conversation/argument.
She was only working there to help a friend, she said, but the firing seems to have struck a chord, spurring her to join the fledgling movement started by a Tombstone newspaper editor and a retired accountant from California.
The Mexican-American woman claimed Harris told her to speak English but Harris said she never said that.
Hand, a blue baseball cap pulled down tight on her forehead, backed up her friend
"She never even said that," Hand said.
Not that the women don't think people living in the U.S. should speak English.
"When someone asks me if I speak Spanish, I ask them, ‘Do you speak Dutch?'," Hand said.
The problem is twofold, according to the women, who joined hundreds of people standing outside a Masonic hall filled to capacity with Minutemen volunteers. Mexicans want to take back the Southwest and the Bush administration is letting it happen.
Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox aren't just "amigos," they're "bed buddies," Hand said.
At a Phoenix area Pep Boys, Hand said she got into it with a man who told her Mexicans were here first.
She told him Mexico lost the territory in the Mexican-American War.
"But now they're trying to get it back by sheer numbers. That's what Fox said," she said.
Byron Jost, a documentary filmmaker from Utah, happened by and joined the conversation.
He said it's ironic the Mexican government prints comic books to help immigrants enter the U.S. illegally and puts troops at its southern border to keep out Guatemalans.
Hand, who was being filmed by Jost at that point, cranked up the rhetoric, presenting debate points and then countering them without prompting.
"They say it's not Christian to let people die in the desert. I say a humane border is a closed border; zero tolerance," she said. "And U.S. corporations that hire illegals should be jailed and hit with a big fine."
"Look at Wal-Mart," Jost said. "They got a slap on the wrist."
"That's just the tip of the iceberg," Hand replied. "Go to Phoenix and there are illegals working in restaurants, illegals working construction. … They say there is no one to do the work but that's (expletive.) Who the hell picked the lettuce before they came?"
With Jost capturing it all on film, Hand continued, "The network news doesn't want to tell the story because the networks are owned by big corporations that are making money on the back of illegal immigrants."
After presenting her points, Hand excused herself and joined her friend, who had sparked a conversation with a fellow volunteer.
After the meeting, many volunteers headed south to stake out camping spots along the border and help the U.S. Border Patrol spot illegal immigrants.
Organizers said the volunteers, who have been told not to interact with any immigrants they see, could be there as long as a month, forming a human barrier.
Jost said he didn't know if he was going to camp in the desert. He said he's been working for a year on a documentary on the editor of the Tombstone Tumbleweed, Chris Simcox, one of the organizers of the project. He thought he had his film wrapped up before he heard about this event.
"I had to come," he said. "I'm interested in the subject and this is part of the story."
Staff Writer Aaron Claverie can be reached at aclaverie@ivpressonline.com or 337-3419.
http://www.ivpressonline.com/articles/2005/04/02/news/news03.txt