On Saturday, January 7, members of Save Our State participated in the National Day of Action for “Immigration Reform” by sending a contingent of their top thugs to the Glendale day labor hiring center/Home Depot location. Several other actions took place including but not limited to locations in Santa Monica, Rancho Cucamonga and Lake Forest.

Originally planned as a “secret” operation where the SOS and their Minutemen counterparts could harass and intimidate day laborers unimpeded, word quickly leaked and was spread out to the immigrant rights activists in the L.A. area. With people spread thin because of the region wide actions SOS drew a fairly small turnout numbering around 15.

Local human rights activists from several organizations fielded a strong group to counter the SOS of around 125. The organized and disciplined Mexica-Movement also attended with numbers around 20 as they took up the defensive position along San Fernando Road in front of the day laborer hiring center.

The rally was much like the other actions over the past year with immigrants rights activists confronting the SOS and Minutemen in a manner that only an armed, volunteer “border guard” can understand. Loud and in your face tactics designed to keep their movement from growing and from the looks of things it’s working.

It doesn’t appear that SOS’s on the street presence has grown at all over the past year. The tactics used by their opposition have kept their numbers small and kept their proto-fascist movement in a box of sorts. What a testament it is to the hard work of all the immigrants rights groups that SOS now has to organize in secret.

And think of how silly it really is that a group that “believes in taking the fight to [their] opponents, fighting the battles on [their] terms and defining the language of the debate” has to call pretend protests at places like Alhambra in an effort to confuse the opposition because they are afraid to deal with an organized and militant response.

During the week, fake e-mails were sent to local activist groups from anonymous e-mail addresses using fake names like “Navarro” pretending to alert them of SOS coming to Alhambra. It was all such a pathetic ruse. And how strange was it for SOS members to engage in a mock, public planning session for a protest that never took place? If that’s not “in your face” activism I don’t know what is.

A few Minutemen were in attendance including one veteran of the Campo “Border Watch”. He had a video camera glued to his hand as did “Good Old Preach”. Copies of these damning videos will surely be sent to Minutemen field offices across the country so that “good Americans” can see what democracy really looks like.

One Mexica-Movement member was arrested after a bazaar pushing incident involving Joe Turner, the Mexica-Movement member, about 20 activists who were following Turner and an undercover cop who turned out to be a Glendale P.D. Sergeant. After the arrest, Turner had a lengthy discussion with a Glendale officer which ended with a nice, little handshake.

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