Volunteers Refocus On Border

THREE POINTS, Ariz., April 1 -- Minuteman volunteers concerned about the continued flow of illegal immigrants across the border from Mexico gathered Saturday with lawn chairs, binoculars and cellphones for a new month-long campaign aimed at raising public awareness of the issue.

A year after their first watch-and-report operation along the border in southeastern Arizona, members of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps embarked on a much larger effort in the busy migrant-smuggling corridor.

At a rally kicking off the effort at a remote southern Arizona ranch Saturday afternoon, politicians and activists opposing illegal immigration gave fiery speeches calling for more border control.

Don Goldwater, a Republican candidate for Arizona governor, said he had a message for President Bush. "Build us that wall now," Goldwater said, referring to a measure that would add 700 miles of fences along the border. He promised that, if elected, he would put illegal immigrants in a tent city on the border and use their labor to build the wall. Goldwater is a nephew of the late GOP senator Barry Goldwater.

Each month, thousands cross into Arizona from Mexico. So far this fiscal year, which began on Oct. 1, agents have caught more than 48,000 illegal immigrants in the area staked out this weekend, up 53 percent, compared with the same period the previous year.

The Minuteman group says it plans to hold similar exercises along the U.S.-Mexican border in California, New Mexico and Texas, and along the U.S.-Canadian border in Washington state, New Hampshire, Vermont and New York.