Civic Groups Unite to Protest Border Vigilantes
La Prensa-San Diego, News Report, Luis Alonso Pérez, Posted: Apr 11, 2005
SAN DIEGO – Minutemen. They call themselves a citizen’s neighborhood watch along the border. For many people they are a hate group, vigilantes, or extremists. But one thing is sure: there are hundreds of them mobilizing from points around the country to the towns of Naco and Douglas, Arizona. They are armed and happy to show their hate towards what they call mobs of illegal aliens who endlessly stream across the United States border.
In response, men and women from both sides of the border got together on Border Field Park and Playas de Tijuana last Saturday April 2, to protest peacefully against the minutemen project, to remember the immigrants who have died while trying to cross the border and to express their rejection to the building of a third wall between Mexico and the United States, a proposition that could be passed as a part of new national security measures to protect the country from terrorists.
Activists, students and concerned Mexican and American citizens got together, displaying banners with messages like “no soy terrorista”, “stop the minutemen” and “make friends, not fences”. They also put up colored crosses on the fence to remember the more than 3,000 immigrants who have died since the operation Gatekeeper began in 1994.
The event was organized by the Border Angels in coordination with environmental protection organizations, a collaboration intended to raise awareness over the impact the new national security measures could have on the environment, and reflect about the intolerance, fear and hatred our society reflected by the minutemen project.
Enrique Morones, fouder of the Border Angels said that Tijuana and San Diego are a single community and cannot tolerate a group like this one. “These vigilantes and terrorists are violating the security, human rights and dignity of immigrants”.
These “vigilante” groups aren’t new. In the eighties hate groups hunted immigrants in the border areas like San Ysidro, near Colonia Libertad and in Playas de Tijuana. The border area where the protestors were standing was called “sacred land” during the meeting, the place where the violent radical groups killed immigrants.
Nature conservancy activists spoke out against the building of a third wall. Jim Peugh of the San Diego Audubon Society expressed his concern over anti-immigrant propositions designed to protect national security.
“Since September 11, many of our human rights have been threatened in the name of national security. Now every type of wall or barrier could be built. We cannot let them destroy the Tijuana river bank,” said Peugh.
After the April 2 protest, civil groups from San Diego and Tijuana organized a trip to Arizona to join in a peaceful protest on April 9 against the minutemen project. Many also attended a meeting of the Institute of Mexicans in the Exterior on April 10, to discuss the problems on the U.S.-Mexican border.
For more information about the Arizona protest or the Border Angels association visit their web site www.BorderAngels.org
Related Stories:
Immigrants Hail Mexico’s Migrant Guide
Comprehensive Immigration Reform: Is It Within Our Grasp?
Misguided Border Policy Continues With Triple Fence, Activists Say
The Border < NCM Coverage
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