KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — When the mayor named a 73-year-old grandmother to the city’s park board – which considers issues like off-leash dog areas and outdoor party permits – the move might have gone largely unnoticed.
But Frances B. Semler’s appointment could now cost the city millions of dollars because she is a member of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, a group that advocates vigilante patrolling of the Mexican border and reports illegal immigrants to authorities.
Her membership has drawn sharp criticism from the National Council of La Raza, the nation’s largest Hispanic advocacy group, and the NAACP. Both groups are threatening to show their displeasure by canceling conventions scheduled to be held in Kansas City.
“We see the Minutemen as an extremist group that espouses hate and vigilanteism and some violence,” said Janet Murguia, president of NCLR. “A member of such a group, no matter how upstanding in other ways, should have no place representing Kansas City.”
The NCLR’s four-day convention in 2009 is expected to generate $5.5 million in revenue for hotels, restaurants and other businesses. The weeklong conference by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 2010 could bring in $9 million.
Semler, who said she will not resign, calls the threats from the civil rights groups “the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.” She said she joined the Minutemen because of the government’s failure to enforce immigration laws.
Minutemen members “sit on lawn chairs with binoculars and a can of Coke or something and watch to see if anyone is coming across” the border, Semler said. “I’m not even sure if they’re armed, but there might be cases if a person has a legal right to carry a gun.”
As stated later in this column, many of the adherents to the Minuteman Project see the immigration issue in terms of ‘legality.’ EAU flatly rejects this premise. Nations have historically been the extension of the race who claimed and developed them — to exclusively suit its people’s intrinsic, societal, and cultural needs. –Ed