The Minuteman Project has brought a lot of attention, not just to Arizona, but to the county I grew up in and may have patrols in my hometown of Douglas, Arizona.  It's predicted that over 1,000 volunteers have signed up to patrol the U.S./Mexican border from April 1 through April 30.  Various media reports seemed to make it an issue that 1,000 volunteers did not show up on April 1.  Well, that probably is true.  However, since this is a 30 day operation, I'm sure most choose to volunteer on certain days, not the entire 30 days.  Here's another example of the liberal media trying to put a left spin on things.

I was born and raised in the border town of Douglas, Arizona.  I experienced the change that occurred in Douglas as I grew up.  From a sleepy little Phelps Dodge town to a hub of illegal immigrants.  Douglas literally turned into a different town at night.  During the day you could feel safe walking on the small streets.  At night, the "coyotes" (people paid to bring illegals across the border) and drug runners took over.  You couldn't feel safe.  When I started my family, I remember we lived on one of the routes illegals took through town, and we lived in the middle of town.  Illegals would come through and hide in our yard, hide behind our cars, in cars if left unlocked.  I caught one sitting on my porch like he owned the place.  Some had no problem knocking doors asking, sometime demanding, food and water.  The mess and damage they leave behind, many times on private property is extraordinary.  I couldn't feel safe raising my family there, so I left my hometown so I could feel safe raising my family.  I would've loved for my son to grow up in the same town I did.

I am Hispanic, but I wouldn't believe a word from people like Isabel Garcia, the director of Derechos Humanos, a Tucson-based human rights group.  In the April 2, 2005 on line edition of The Douglas Dispatch, Garcia says,

"It's about race and not about the border. It's about poor, brown people moving across the border and white people not liking that." (Isabel Garcia, Tucson Derechos Humanos Director, The Douglas Dispatch online edition, April 2, 2005)

Nothing could be farther from the truth.  It's remarks like this that bother me about my race.  Anytime, anyone wants to stop something illegal, to people like Isabel Garcia, it's racism.  I can tell Garcia this isn't racism.  This is about securing our borders, not just from illegal immigrants, but from terrorism as well.  Unfortunately, what I have always noticed from Hispanics, at least Hispanics where I live and where I grew up, they'll brag about how they got away with something illegal.  How they fooled the government.  But as soon as something is done to stop them.  When something is put in place to prevent them from doing something illegal, they cry racism.  As I understand things, it's not a Hispanic's right to do an illegal act, it's not a Hispanic's right to cheat the government.  There's nothing racist about it.  As a Hispanic I see that clearly.

What the Minuteman Project is saying is, "enough is enough".  We have to secure our borders.  President Bush has gone as far as to call the volunteers of the Minuteman Project "vigilantes".  With all due respect to the President, this is not group of vigilantes.  This is a group of concerned citizens worried about the lack of security on our southern border.  Their mission is not filled with racism, hatred or intent on violence.  Their intent is to show the rest of the nation that our country is at risk as long as the southern border is not secured.  There is fear that the Minuteman Project will bring violence.  I sincerely believe that is not there intent.  If violence occurs, I think it will be because violence was brought against them.