By Rachel Leifer and Denise M. Bonilla Staff Writer
September 10, 2005, 11:09 PM EDT
<http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/ny-limini0911,0,2828576.story? coll=ny-linews-headlines>
Brandishing signs with slogans reading "Deport Illegal Aliens" and "No Border, No Order, No Nation," about 30 demonstrators yesterday took to a Farmingville corner known as a hiring depot for day laborers to demand enforcement of immigration laws.
The group was led by the controversial Arizona-based Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, which held an event later in the day in Babylon seeking volunteers to patrol U.S. borders.
That meeting, held at the American Legion Post No. 94, attracted about 50 demonstrators against the Minutemen, but only a handful interested in learning more about the group.
"The Minutemen are the equivalent of a terrorist organization and they're really going unchecked by the government right now," said demonstrator David Castillo, 22, of Wantagh, of the Workplace Project, a nonprofit immigrant rights group.
The four-hour meeting, which had been advertised as open to the public, became "invitation only," according to one member of the Minutemen, who would not say his name and refused to let a Newsday reporter and photographer enter. The man said the building had been targeted by vandals early Friday, with "Stop the Hate" scrawled in black paint.
In Farmingville, the Minutemen said Long Islanders were behind their efforts.
"You can hear all the support we have here," said Minutemen leader Chris Simcox of Tombstone, Ariz., gesturing as dozens of passing cars on Horse Block Road and North Ocean Avenue blew their horns early yesterday.
Simcox is touring the nation to rally support -- and volunteers. The Minutemen -- which Simcox said has 7,000 members in 12 states -- has established armed civilian patrols along the southern border, and plans to inaugurate similar watches on the Canadian border beginning Oct. 1.
Simcox hoped to attract volunteers "from all across the Northeast," said Simcox.
Insp. Robert Ponzo of the Suffolk County Police Department's Sixth Precinct said, "Everyone behaved and no one's rights were infringed upon."
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