HERNDON, Va. — The cluster of middle-aged men and women dressed in jeans and sweat shirts, with cameras and video recorders at the ready, peered across the street. Tourists are common in the Washington area, but these people weren't looking for monuments.
The group, a newly formed chapter of the Minuteman Project, had its cameras trained on about 100 men gathered at an informal day-labor site in this northern Virginia town. When a truck or car pulled up, they snapped shots in earnest. The activists were there to photograph prospective employers, note license plate numbers and business names, and report them to the authorities, though it was unclear whether any official action would follow.
The Minuteman Project, controversial for its border patrols, is trying something new: looking to fight illegal immigration in the nation's interior by targeting employers. The group is organizing in communities including Atlanta, Salt Lake City, Chicago, Indianapolis and Charlotte, N.C., monitoring and reporting businesses that hire suspected undocumented workers.
The self-appointed border security group is finding willing recruits. Since the Arizona-based Minuteman Project began in April, more than 20 chapters have sprung up across the country, said Chris Simcox, the group's national president. He said the organization had "well over 100 requests" from people interested in starting their own chapters.
"We're struggling to keep up with the demand," Simcox said. "It's our aim, by next November, the '06 elections, to have Minuteman interior chapters in every congressional district in the country."
The group has been denounced for its border activities, its members dismissed as vigilantes and spoken of disapprovingly by President Bush.
They are no less controversial in Herndon, where Mayor Michael O'Reilly has called the national organization "a group that's almost hate-based" and has criticized the local chapter's tactic of monitoring employers as "an attempt to intimidate."
The animosity was apparent one recent day, when camera-carrying Minuteman volunteers at a Herndon day-labor site were surprised by a fast-moving Pontiac Grand Am. The car screeched to the curb and a woman jumped out.
"What you're doing is persecution," she shouted. "These people are just poor!"
The woman began hurling crumpled newspaper pages, bead necklaces, anything she could find in the car at the Minuteman activists, who silently turned their cameras her way. "You're against immigrants," she yelled, gunning the engine and pulling away.
