Worrying development points to potential government crackdown
Southern California Minuteman John Matthew Monti, 36, has been arrested and charged with multiple misdemeanor counts related to his anti-immigration activism. The charges are four counts of battery, four counts of interfering with the civil rights of day laborers, and one count of falsifying a crime report. All the alleged crimes are said to have been carried out in the San Diego area, a hotbed of the struggle against illegal Third World immigration.
The charges come from an event in November, 2006 in Rancho Penasquitos, where Monti is alleged to have photographed day laborers, action which ended in a scuffle. Such direct action has heightened the fears of politicians and their corporate sponsors, who would prefer opposition to immigration be as muted as practical. However, the Minutemen have taken protest in new directions, fielding patrols of the border and exposing those who illegally profit from the immigration crisis.
The multiple charges against Monti seem not only to be selective, but also excessive. Especially in Southern California, peaceful anti-immigration protests have been met with extreme violence from pro-immigration forces, which have included gang members, yet police often play the role of enablers of the violence. In most locales police are not even allowed to report the illegal status of arrestees to the federal government. Such “kid-gloves” behavior gives aid and comfort to illegal immigrants and their allies, some of whom have even reportedly put out “hits” on Minutemen with the dreaded Mara Salvatrucha gang.The arrest of Monti may be a part of a broad-based governmental and special interest assault on the Minutemen, who have galvanized public opposition to the open border policy of the White House and forced “mainstream” politicians to endorse anti-immigration measures. Various civil legal proceedings have lately bogged down the movement, while the homes of two other activists were recently raided in pursuit of spurious “vandalism” charges.
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