- For Wanda Weatherford it's a battle for the American
middle class.
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- That's why the 70-year-old Littleton grandmother drove
to the Mexican border last Friday and joined the Minuteman Project.
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- "Young people are so busy working. As a senior citizen
I need to pick up the ball and run with it," said Weatherford on Thursday.
She returned home Sunday.
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- The Minuteman Project's volunteers will spend a day to
several weeks through April on a 23-mile stretch of desert to stop immigrants
from crossing into the U.S.
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- Working round the clock in shifts, the volunteers have
been alerting the U.S. Border Patrol when they see people moving toward
the border from Mexico.
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- "I've heard of people in construction now who can't
find work here," said Weatherford. "It isn't right. It's the
destruction of the middle class."
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- By Thursday, there had been no confrontations between
the Minuteman Project volunteers and immigrants, the U.S. Border Patrol
said.
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- Weatherford and her 30-year-old daughter, who declined
to be identified, took a noon spotter shift Friday and a 6 a.m. shift Saturday.
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- Sitting in lawn chairs near Naco, Ariz., Weatherford
scanned the flat horizon of mesquite bushes and desert littered with empty
water bottles and clothing.
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- "We had binoculars and walkie-talkies," she
said. "The media kept saying we were vigilantes.
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- "I wish they had a picture of my face, a 70-year-old
woman," said Weatherford, who was badly sunburned the first day.
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- "All the people I meet were law-abiding citizens
with a concern for their country and protecting the middle class,"
she said.
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- She didn't see anyone trying to sneak over the border.
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- "We did see a group of people, including a reporter
from Mexico carrying camera equipment with people wearing orange suits
that were giving out water to people out there," she said.
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- The group disappeared into the bushes when they saw the
volunteer patrols, she said.
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- "It was very hot. The sand was blowing. It was not
like a tailgate party," Weatherford said. "But you were accomplishing
something.
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- "We were doing the job that our government was supposed
to do," said Weatherford. One day, a local woman stopped by to thank
them for being there, she said.
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- The Minuteman Project's spokesman is Mike McGarry of
Aspen. He's returned to Colorado to resume his job as a maintenance man.
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- He said all volunteers were individually interviewed.
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- The volunteers approved are mostly retired people, military
veterans and former law enforcement officers, McGarry said.
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- "Some people have guns, but most don't," he
said. "The weapon of choice is a video camera. I didn't have a gun
because I'd shoot my foot off."
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- He said the Minuteman Project seeks jobs and fair wages
for Americans.
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- "I do work that Americans don't want - building
maintenance," he said. "The illegals have downed wages and benefits
for Americans."
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- "Racism is not driving this," said McGarry.
"These people are conservatives who voted for Bush. I bet a lot of
the volunteers sit in their lawn chairs and exchange pictures of their
grandkids."
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- http://www.rockymountainnews.com/
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