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Anti-Education Extremists

Minutemen Confrontations Caught on Film

The California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation has posted video(link is external) its activists took of Minutemen protesting day-labor sites in the San Diego area. For his part, the founder of the San Diego Minutemen(link is external) – who are seen in the video clips taking pictures of employers and arguing with or threatening workers and others – complains(link is external) that “These camera people are getting in our faces.”

A few miles to the north, the city council of Escondido appears poised(link is external) to pass a Hazleton-style anti-immigrant ordinance, including California’s first ordinance to target landlords who rent to undocumented immigrants. Even as cities that passed such measures – like Riverside(link is external), New Jersey(link is external) and Valley Park, Missouri(link is external) – are straining under the effects, more cities are looking to crack down on a certain part of their populations. Altoona, Pennsylvania(link is external) approved such an ordinance Wednesday, and now Carpentersville, Illinois(link is external) is looking to join in:

In what experts said was a first for the Chicago area, two Carpentersville trustees have proposed that the village punish landlords and businesses that "aid and abet" illegal immigrants.

The ordinance, expected to be formally introduced at Tuesday's Village Board meeting, would also make English the official language of Carpentersville, a town whose population of 37,000 is almost half Hispanic.

“What we're seeing around the country is local entities saying, you know what, folks, we have to take matters into our own hands,” says Minuteman Civil Defense Corps’ Illinois state director. “That's the proper response, because they were voted in to protect American citizens.”

The Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund has a list of anti-immigrant local ordinances(link is external).