By ARTHUR H. ROTSTEIN
The Associated Press
NACO, Ariz. - Volunteers recruited to monitor illegal immigrants crossing a stretch of Arizona’s border ended a monthlong vigil as organizers said they plan to expand the mission to the other states bordering Mexico and parts of the Canadian border.
Organizers said volunteers’ calls to the U.S. Border Patrol resulted in the arrests of 335 illegal immigrants. Project organizers had ordered volunteers not to detain any illegal border crossers they encountered, and no major incidents were reported.
“This could not have been done without all of you. You did this together _ you the people,” co-organizer Chris Simcox told some 150 Minutemen and supporters gathered Saturday outside a church at Palominas.
Organizers said nearly 900 volunteers _ some of them armed _ had spent at least one eight-hour shift in the field through Friday, working mostly stationary patrols along a 23-mile (37-kilometer) stretch of border in Cochise County. The final eight-hour shift was scheduled to end at 6 a.m. Sunday.
An Army reservist was arrested on charges of holding seven Mexicans at gunpoint at a rest stop in southern Arizona earlier this month, though he was not affiliated with the Minuteman Project.
Critics of the program, including Border Patrol officials, have said the group was little more than a nuisance that attracted significant attention from the media and civil rights groups watching volunteers for possible rights violations.
President George W. Bush expressed his opposition to “vigilantes,” and many people on the Mexican side of the border referred to the Minutemen as “migrant hunters.”
But Jim Gilchrist, founder of the program, said the group’s efforts brought nationwide attention to the problem of illegal immigration. He warned, however, that unless the work continues, “it’s going to be viewed as just a monthlong dog and pony show.”
Mike Minatrea, a ham radio operator who was stationed near Naco for a week with his wife, Kristi, said the Minuteman Project “has told the rest of America what they can do to get something done” by protesting in a calm, orderly and productive fashion.
Ed Whitbred, a Minuteman supervisor, said the project shows that the American people have the will and desire to secure the border even if the government doesn’t.
“I’m afraid we’re on a slippery slope if we don’t solve this (illegal immigration) problem,” he said.
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