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July 04, 2005
Home sweet home
MORRISTOWN, Tenn. (AP) -- This small southern Appalachian industrial town of 25,000 residents is nearly 1,800 miles from the Arizona-Mexico border where citizen patrols out to catch undocumented immigrants have stirred controversy and fears of vigilantism.But this is where the self-styled Tennessee Volunteer Minutemen, a spinoff by Tennessee sympathizers of those Western efforts, are taking aim at a perceived invasion of "illegal aliens," particularly Hispanics, and those who employ them.
The Southeast has the nation's fastest-growing Hispanic population and Tennessee is part of the trend. The state's Hispanic numbers have nearly tripled over the last decade, often concentrating around employment centers offering steady pay for hard manual work, such as poultry processors and landscape nurseries.
As someone who has lived in these rural areas of the Southeast, particularly Tennessee, let me be the first to say that the Minutemen patrols are nothing short of racist. These rural economies need the immigrants to fill jobs that locals will no longer do for the pay that is offered, like working in chicken factories and hauling hay. I'm willing to bet that these Minutemen don't go around harassing white, European immigrants to make sure they are in the country legally.
Posted by Elyas at 02:17 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Comments
I found your comments to be very interesting. We can never keep up with all that is going on. For example who would have ever thought Apple and Intel would be working together. On another side note, I’m one of the beta testers for a new browser. It can be found here; www.idealbrowser.com. The company is looking for others to test it out as well so download it and give them some feedback.
Posted by: Dan at July 6, 2005 12:02 AM