BBC NEWS | Americas | Drive for strict US immigrant law

The Minuteman people interest me, because very often when they are quoted, the surnames of the spokespeople are Hispanic. Of course, they’re probably native born Latinos and Latinas, or at least naturalized citizens. They’re pretty successful at getting their pictures in the paper doing what they do, but not so successful with the gathering the massive crowds of people to rallies in support of their cause.

The caravan will leave Los Angeles on Wednesday, where it plans to highlight unemployment in the African-American community. It says the problem is caused by illegal immigrants taking jobs “that Americans would be willing to do”.The group is planning to hold rallies in cities including Phoenix in Arizona, and Crawford in Texas, where President George W Bush has a ranch. The convoy will finish by driving to Capitol Hill in Washington DC for a rally on 12 May. “Our power is not putting a million people on the street, our power is putting 10 million people at the voting box,” said executive director Stephen Eichler.

So they’re going to do a caravan across the country, in an attempt to build popular support. It’ll be interesting to check in later and see how successful this is and how many show up at their Washington rally. Actually, there’s a fairly good chance that the caravan will fall apart somewhere in the middle, because frankly, it sounds like the family roadtrip from hell.

Interesting route – the backtracking is via large cities in friendly states for maximum media exposure. It wouldn’t do to have a press conference in the middle of nowhere.

The Minuteman Project, the self-proclaimed citizen border patrol that has emerged as a vocal opponent of illegal immigration, arrived in the heart of South Los Angeles Wednesday hoping to recruit blacks to their cause.

But instead, they were met by protesters, most of them black, who compared the group to the Ku Klux Klan and urged them to take their campaign elsewhere.

The event, billed as the Minuteman Project’s launch of a cross-country caravan to Washington, D.C., quickly devolved into a series of shouting matches between two sides punctuated by honking horns and howls from a megaphone.

And the newspaper, radio and TV reporters far outnumbered the participants.

All of which drove away in 3 RVs and a few cars. Adios, amigos. Vaya con Dios (o al Diablo).

I’ll revisit this story and add links to local news coverage as the days go by.

UPDATE: I’ll be adding links and further quotes in the extended entry.

OC Register: Minutemen Take To The Road

Houston Chronicle: Hispanic Minutemen