Ernesto Portillo Jr.
Arizona Daily Star Tucson, Arizona | Published: 03.31.2006
Tomorrow is April Fool's Day. Tomorrow the Minutemen return to the border. You make the connection.
It's been a year since the Minutemen made their big splash in Tombstone.
The national and international media, especially television, loved the group. The television news cameras couldn't get enough of the Minutemen, mainly angry guys wrapped in U.S. flags and packing heat on their hips.
Off its members went to play border watchmen, sitting in lawn chairs and pickup trucks along small portions of the 2,000-mile, U.S.-Mexican border.
The Minutemen proclaimed their work a success in deterring illegal immigration.
However, as we say on the border, "no es la verdad," which is Spanish for "it's not the truth."
"There is simply no credible evidence that the Minutemen have deterred any Mexicans from leaving home, coming to the border and trying to gain entry until they succeed," said Wayne Cornelius, director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California-San Diego. "At most, would-be migrants and the people-smugglers who assist them find these groups to be a fleeting obstacle that they can easily detour around," said Cornelius, who has studied Mexican immigration for 36 years.
But that doesn't deter the Minutemen from making more truth-challenged assertions. One of the most creative claims is that the Minutemen forced the nation to focus its attention on illegal immigration.
The truth is, the nation had long been talking and arguing about immigration before the Minutemen appeared.
About 15 years ago, as a reporter in San Diego, I reported on border demonstrations by activists who wanted the federal government to enforce border laws. They were led by a nice woman, Muriel Watson, a widow of a U.S. Border Patrol agent. She and others lined their cars facing south into Tijuana with the headlights on. It made for good television news.
The Minutemen are a Johnny-come-lately to border sideshows.
"Immigration would have been a big issue whether or not the Minutemen had ever existed, because numerous Republican politicians have chosen it to be the wedge issue of this election year," Cornelius said.
Ironically, it's the Minutemen who have made illegal immigration a wedge issue within the Republican Party.
Republicans thought they could use illegal immigration against the Democrats. But the issue has pitted Republicans against Republicans.
Many in the party are bitterly split with President Bush, some Republican leaders and the party's historical business base, all of whom support a guest-worker program. The Minutemen and their supporters want to seal the border, make felons out of undocumented immigrants and not allow a guest-worker program.
In the past year, the Minutemen claim they have grown to more than 6,500 members. They have spawned copycat groups across the country. Minutemen have been hailed by some state governors and federal lawmakers.
But the group's role in a reasonable debate on immigration reform is questionable. At best, they brought more television cameras to the border. At worst, they escalated the ugly rhetoric used to demonize undocumented immigrants.
"Vigilante groups are bit players in the current immigration debate," Cornelius said.
Last April when the Minutemen launched their first border watch, they were nearly outnumbered by the media. Don't expect as many reporters Saturday. The media knows it's April Fool's Day.
Opinion by Ernesto Portillo Jr.
http://www.azstarnet.com/allheadlines/122479
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