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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | April 2005 
Mexican-Americans Challenge Vigilantes
 Wire services
| | Minuteman volunteer Mike Milmine views the US-Mexico border near Naco, Arizona. |
Angered by the actions of "Minutemen" civilian border guards, some U.S. citizens of Mexican descent are crossing from Mexico into southern Arizona in the hopes of being "detained" by the vigilantes so they can then sue them for violating their civil rights.
"We know that it's risky, but it's the only way in which we can contribute to stopping those people who, like us, are civilians and have no right to detain immigrants," organizer Antonio Madrigal told EFE.
A native of Michoacan who became a U.S. citizen more than two decades ago, Madrigal heads the group Training Occupational Development Educating Communities, or TODEC, which aids immigrant communities in California.
His initiative is in response to the April 1 launch of the Minuteman Project, which involves a few hundred self-appointed sentinels taking up positions along a stretch of the Arizona-Mexico border to watch for undocumented immigrants trying to enter the United States.
The Minuteman effort, which is condemned by the Mexican government and frowned upon by the U.S. administration, coincides with the implementation of an Arizona law approved by voters last November that denies some services to people who cannot prove they are legal U.S. residents.
Madrigal told EFE that he is one of some 500 activists prepared to challenge the Minuteman under the banner: "No Human Being is Illegal."
He said he hit upon the idea of Mexicans with U.S. citizenship crossing the border "without papers" as the only peaceful way of confronting the vigilantes.
Madrigal said he contacted Mexico's consulates in Arizona and state authorities in his native Michoacan about securing an official repudiation of the Minutemen's activities.
But the Michoacan official responsible for migrants's issues, Claudio Méndez, denied offering any support to TODEC and voiced disapproval of Madrigal's plan for taking on the vigilantes.
"I don't know anything about this group, and if it exists, how fine that there are associations worried about safeguarding the rights of dual-nationals. But at the same time I'm concerned about their assuming this kind of attitude, because defending migrants is the job of the federal government through diplomacy," Méndez commented to EFE. |
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