Protesters outnumber Minutemen

“Minutemen, racist, KKK, fascists out of the USA!” chanted a crowd of more than 100 protesters outside the American Legion Hall in Babylon, N.Y., on Sept. 10. The local Immigrant Rights Committee of the Troops Out Now Coalition organized the demonstration with several Long Island activist groups.

Outside the American Legion Hall in Babylon, N.Y., on Sept. 10.

Anti-fascist organizations from New Jersey and from New York City came out to castigate the Legionnaires for inviting Minutemen founder Chris Simcox to Suffolk County. Simcox is organizing vigilantes to keep immigrants from crossing the border.

In Babylon, the local reactionaries who attended were far outnumbered by their opponents. Students skateboarding at the high school across the street joined the mostly youthful and multi-national pro test ers. Together they chanted, “No human being is illegal!” and “El pueblo unido jamas sera vencido” (the people united will never be defeated).

The right wingers screamed homophobic and racist epithets at demonstrators. When one Legionnaire asked, “Where are your American flags?” an African American demonstrator responded, “Where are your people of color?”

When Simcox arrived, he scuttled inside where he was joined by the local founder of Farmingville’s anti-immigrant group called “Sachem Quality of Life,” Margaret Bianculli-Dyber; Yonkers Mayor John Spencer, who supports “secure borders”; and a local businessman who wants to start a Minutemen group in Suffolk County. John Clark, a member of both California Citizens for Immigration Reform and the American Immigration Control Foundation, was present. So was Ron Bass, a New Jersey organizer for the ultra-right United Patriots of America. Bass is trying to bring the Minuteman Project to the Garden State.

The Minutemen chose Long Island to launch their neo-Nazi campaign against immigrants because recent arrests, police harassment, evictions and official sanctions against Mexican day laborers residing in Farmingville have encouraged reactionaries to believe that a Minuteman pre sence could be established in the area.