Whatcom's Rational Response to anti-immigrant hysteria

BORDER
Panel applauds Minuteman forum
Rights commission encourages sides to keep talking

JOHN STARK
THE BELLINGHAM HERALD
April 29, 2006

Washington State Human Rights Commission members said Friday they were pleased with the community response to a Thursday forum on border-watching activities conducted here by the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps.

Chairwoman Kathy Baros Friedt commended local residents for the civil tone of the meeting, which included comments from Minuteman President Chris Simcox and other border security advocates as well as immigration rights supporters.

"It's a challenge those of us in democracy have, when you respect the right of free speech," Baros Friedt said. "It's a challenge to listen to people when you don't like what they are saying."

Baros Friedt said the commission had heard no testimony indicating any local violations of the state civil rights laws that the commission is empowered to investigate. Commissioners agreed they would take no further action here for now, although they expressed informal interest in establishing a branch office here eventually.

"I think we played our role in just having that forum," Baros Friedt said.

She encouraged local people on all sides of the issue to continue talking to each other.

She and other commission members expressed concern that the Minuteman group is creating a climate of fear in the Hispanic community here. They said they were unimpressed with Simcox's assurances that his group intends to respect the law and is not targeting any ethnic group.

Baros Friedt said she fears that those kinds of assurances would lead the unwary to support a movement that she believes could lead to abuses against Hispanics and other racial and ethnic minorities.

Commissioner Jerry Hebert said the Minuteman group's Web site conveyed a less benign image than Simcox appeared to be cultivating in his Thursday remarks.

"It is very ugly, unbelievably ugly," Hebert said. ...(full article)

It was pretty impressive when 200 or so people of all shapes, sizes and colors turned out to oppose the activities of the washington minutemen detachment. National Border vigilante leader Chris Simcox and local vigilante leader Tom Williams could only mustered around twenty supporters to attend the Human Rights Commission hearing (about the same number that showed up for the much publicized kick-off of their month long border vigil.)

It's clear we're talking about a unified community that has no patience with scapegoating and racism virus a genuine fringe group.

Too bad the local GOP would rather side with an extremist fringe group instead of with the people of Whatcom County.

- Whatcom County Republican Party 2006 convention -
The platform includes supporting the construction of a larger Whatcom County jail, creating tougher sentencing for sex offenders, supporting the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, and expecting the Whatcom County Council to notify landowners by mail when their property is affected by changes in land zoning.

DOUG ROULSTONE (R) Candidate for Congress WA-2nd
Though saying he doesn't know what the best answer is to solve illegal immigration, he wants better security at the border. He called the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps "a program that makes sense,"...