Growth of the Minuteman Project is occurring all throughout America. Requests have come in from all 50 states to organize a chapter. This is a grass roots movement that, no matter what its detractors say, is not racist hatemongers but are average citizens who are fed up with the costs and destruction of America that is occurring due to illegal immigration.

Salt Lake Tribune

Organizing requests have come from all 50 states, said Minuteman spokeswoman Connie Hair. Some groups focus on internal vigilance, such as an operation that uses volunteers with cameras to document people hiring illegal immigrants.

Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which advocates limits on immigration, said the Minuteman Project reflects a visceral reaction to the ''national intrusion'' by illegal immigrants.

''There's a genuineness to this that has won over the hearts and minds of the American public,'' Stein said.

Of course there's always those out there who say it is people who hate immigration in general and fail to even point out that the group is solely targeting illegal aliens and those that ire them.

Attention surrounding immigration problems helped attract ''a fairly broad cross-section of middle Americans,'' said Mark Potok, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project, which monitors hate groups. ''This is partly driven by politicians falling all over each other over an issue that they feel had some real resonance.''

Potok said that, according to his group's research, ''there are real strains of racism and anti-Semitism in this movement."

''Nevertheless,'' he said, ''the movement has attracted people who are not Klansmen or neo-Nazis.''

Wow, good thing he noted that there are a few people who are not Nazi klansmen! His assertion that the group is against the Jews is just totally asinine. The group watches for illegal aliens and all the sudden it's about the Jews. Talk about jumping to conclusions.

Then you've got those at Universities who come out and say it's all racist and hate towards immigration in general. Like this guy.

Celestino Fernandez, a sociologist at the University of Arizona, said it is the latest iteration of this country's history of reaction and resistance to waves of immigration - first to an influx of Chinese immigrants and later to people from southern and eastern Europe.

''They're reasonable people, yes, they're good people, but they're also reacting against demographic changes, just like every prior generation has reacted against demographic changes of people whom they perceive as different,'' he said.

The Minutemen see Latinos everywhere - ''more in their states, whether it's the South or the Midwest or East or New York City,'' Fernandez said. ''There are more Mexicans in the country. They keep reading about the border and it's like a sieve - people coming across, and aren't they going to control it, and the government's not doing anything.''

You know what Celestino Fernandez, maybe we are seeing more Mexicans in this country, the border is like a sieve and you know what smart guy, the government isn't doing a damn thing about it.

Your whole argument is bunk because it is true. If things were working like they should be, we would see a healthy flow of immigration and not a society-destroying flood of illegal aliens who are giving all Mexicans and Latino's a bad name. Wake up and get with the program Fernandez, because these illegal aliens are not only destroying communities with crime, flooding classrooms, driving hospital emergency rooms out of business and driving taxes up country wide, they are also giving you and legal immigrants from Mexico a bad name.