Houstonites Take Back the Corner Store

"Taking border battle to the streets In Houston, debate gives way to confrontation of illegal immigrants, their supporters"

In a recent article featured in the Houston Chronicle, a disturbing scene was depicted. Regardless of where you might stand on the ever-controversial issue of illegal immigration, this article should get you fired-up.

A national anti-immigrant group that generously calls themselves "The U.S. Border Watch," is implementing aggressive tactics to oust illegal immigrants. While they claim that their motives are not fueled by a "racist agenda," I found their actions to speak volumes beyond their words. In many cases, I might add, their words actually reflected just as poorly on them as their overall brazen presence.

Last Saturday, US Border Watch showed up in the parking lot of a local corner store in Houston, TX, a place that is known to be a gathering point for day laborers (illegal immigrants looking for work). Two dozen volunteers from the organization showed up bright and early on Saturday morning, many wearing COMBAT BOOTS AND MILITARY-STYLE clothing. This image alone was enough to to render me completely incensed, and at the very least diminished this groups credibility in my eyes from the get-go. In response to statements made by the counter-protesters present, the president of Border Watch was quoted as saying:

''To be racist, you have to target someone because of their race," Collier said. ''We don't care who you are. If you're here illegally we want you to go home. It's not about being brown-skinned, it's about being illegal."

The president further justified the group's vision by stating;

''There have been reports of Spanish-speaking schools popping up in the Middle East and teaching people in that part of the world to speak Spanish so they can blend in easily."

One picket sign at this make-shift rally read, ''Thou Shall not Steal America." While I certainly don't claim to be a religious gal, can we please leave references to God's divine will out of the mix when we show up to scare the begeesus out of marginalized, underpaid, often abused and needy migrant workers? I'm pretty sure there's a clause in "God's book" that says something like "do unto others..." If you ask me, these vigilante-combat-boot-wearing thugs are the ones "stealing" America, by acting aggressively and inappropriately. They function as unelected representatives of our cultural values when they take to the streets shouting and video-taping, wearing COMBAT garb...did I mention that they were costumed, with WAR MONGER MILITARY ATTIRE being the theme of their shindig?!!? I believe I may have.....

Mark Potok, director of Southern Poverty Law Center's intelligence project, which monitors organizations like Border Watch, says that "the most significant danger posed by these groups is the poisoning of the democratic debate" about immigration levels, Potok said. Instead, the groups have turned ''the discussion into a diatribe about how Mexicans are destroying our culture, bringing diseases to our country and killing dozens of Americans every day." I looked into this a bit, and found that the group is, in fact, perpetuating such rhetoric. What a novel idea! Let's create fear in the public, because everyone knows that fear breeds justice and reform. In fact, we may even want to create a separate color coding system to alert the public when there is an increased risk for Mexican-born disease or if that day-laborer at the corner store is having a bad morning and may just break out into a homicidal rage. Is the tan-skinned eight year old that rides the bus with your Anglo-Saxon child of Mexican descent? Are his parents legal? This may be information you are entitled to know, considering the savages among us. Is that child coughing, as well? No worries, Border Watch is raising the security color from fuscia to magenta. Phew, now our culture is safe...

Americans are fortunate enough to have been born into a society where equality of opportunity is generally considered to be a birth-right. Our political system depends on "involvement" in order to fully actualize the principles of democracy; I get that. However, this seems to be an issue in which mayhem and descent are unwarranted, and my objection lies not with the groups position, but with their approach. Border Watch's means of "involvement" is in poor form, and in the end quite ineffective in meeting the goals of their agenda. That's assuming, of course, that they are actually mobilized by the motives which they claim. I am embarrassed on their behalf. Be careful, America, we've got an ugly past, and history has a tendency to repeat itself.