Original article is at http://arizona.indymedia.org/news/2006/03/37717.php Print comments.
One thousand rally to oppose Minutemen
by godless
Sunday, Mar. 05, 2006 at 3:21 PM
At least 1000 people showed up in response to the Minutemen call for a rally and protest against oppose Sen. John McCain's immigration reform bill. All but 25 of the people were there to oppose the Minutemen.
The Minutemen Civil Defense Corps and the newly-formed Mothers Against Illegal Aliens (MAIA) put out a call for a rally and protest against Sen. John McCain and Sen. Edward Kennedy's immigration reform bill, which includes a guest worker program. The Minutemen and their ilk consider this to be an "amnesty" program that “rewards” undocumented people for breaking the law.
Twenty-five Minutemen and MAIA members showed up outside McCain's office at 8 am on Saturday, March 4, only to be greeted by at least 1000 immigrants and their supporters. While the Minutemen had a handful of signs and banners, they were completely overwhelmed by the counter-demonstrators with their hundreds of signs and full sound system. The pro-immigrant side kept spirits high for three hours with chants, songs, speeches, and even several rounds of people doing "the wave" on the sidewalk!
MAIA is a new group that has formed to "protect America's legal children" from illegal immigrants. Witnesses report that they have been using more confrontational tactics at the weekly anti-day laborer demonstrations organized by the Minutemen. Since their members are also not required to follow the Minutemen Standard Operating Procedures, they are free to speak their minds and reveal their true motivation: racist fear. What other motive could possibly explain their call for a boycott of Home Depot? Not just because Home Depot "allows" day laborers to gather on public property outside their stores (except when the security guards call the police to have the laborers arrested, that is). But also because Home Depot is trying to hire more Hispanic people! Not only that, but Home Depot hangs signs in Spanish!
The stepped-up rhetoric may be inciting the less stable members of the anti-immigrant movement to lash out the immigrants that they so despise. At the protest, several witnesses reported that a man walked up to a counter-demonstrator and angrily spoke to her, then pushed her face with his open hand. As he hurried off, he also pushed one of her small children aside. Witnesses reported the incident to the police and gave them the man’s license plate number.
Fringe racist elements also seem more comfortable with the emerging new leadership in the anti-immigrant movement, and may be more willing to let their true “colors” show. One man appeared near the end of the rally with that old racist symbol, the Confederate flag (see picture below). Apparently, these “patriots” missed the irony in waving the flag of the only sovereign nation that has ever attacked the United States on its own soil.
The rally wound down around 11 am with no further incidents. As the pro-immigrant forces cleared out in a quick and orderly fashion, they left the despondent Minutemen and Mothers to console themselves after having been completely upstaged once again.