The Hispanic Minutemen

Houston Chronicle:

Al Garza says he's proud of his Latino heritage, his race. La raza, he calls it, shifting easily from English to Spanish.

But he said he's not about to join the protesters who have taken to the streets of Houston and other cities in recent weeks in demand of amnesty for illegal immigrants.

"Personally, I'm very disappointed in our own raza at what they're doing," said Garza, a Texas native who wants to end the flow of illegal immigration across the U.S.-Mexico border.

"Just because I'm Hispanic doesn't mean I'm going to allow complete strangers trampling over property, vandalizing people's homes and ranches," he said.

Garza, former Texas president of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps and now the group's second-in-command, is one of the nation's most prominent Hispanic anti-immigration activists.

Ten percent of the Minutemen's 8,000 members are Hispanic, he said.

"This has nothing to do with race," said Garza, who was born in Raymondville in South Texas. "Anyone that has any racial agenda is not wanted in our group."

What matters, Garza says, is enforcing the law and getting control of the border. His view of illegal immigrants, some experts say, underscores long-held differences between American-born Latinos and foreign-born newcomers.

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There were also hispanics who fought for Texas independence against a tyranical Mexican goverment. The rule of law should be important to everyone. If the reconquest lobby got their way, where would the Mexicans escape to anyway?