AP, BS, and "U.S. Anti-Immigration Movement Spreads"

Duncan Mansfield of the AP offers us a roundup about the spread of offshoots of the Minuteman Project to several states around the nation.

The original AP title of the piece appears to be "U.S. Anti-Immigration Movement Spreads", which is contradicted by its very first paragraph:

A volunteer movement that vows to guard America from a wave of illegal immigration has spread from the dusty U.S.-Mexican border to the verdant hollows of Appalachia...

So, the headline was basically a lie: they aren't "anti-immigrant", they're "anti-illegal immigration". Despite that, the phrase "anti-immigration" is used in the second paragraph.

By just the fourth paragraph, the smears have begun:

Critics call the movement vigilantism, and some hear in the words of the Minutemen a vitriol similar to what hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan used against Southern blacks in the 1960s.

Later in the piece, a volunteer goes on the defensive, just like the AP wants:

The Tennessee Minutemen, which plans rallies in Memphis and Nashville and reputedly has heard from at least 120 potential members statewide, insist they are not vigilantes or racists.

Whether they insisted that they stopped beating their wives is left unanswered.

And, it includes this quote from a Morristown TN supporter of illegal immigration:

"The same sort of dogmatism that racists used against blacks in lower Alabama and across the South, I am seeing the same patterns here... They are using it as a racially divisive thing."

Is that quote from a racial group, or perhaps a far-left group? No, actually it's from Thom Robinson of the area Chamber of Commerce. Think they might have a profit motive in all this?

There would seem to be a whole other story here, and the AP doesn't seem to want to report it for some reason...

Note that this story appeared in the following under the original headline: WaPo, ABCNews, Frisco Chronical, al-Guardian, and Wired. Others that might have include the Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, and the Merc News.

It's also available here:
"Anti-immigration drive spreading"
"Anti-immigration group"

On a brighter note, these sources at least changed the headline:
"U.S. volunteer group fighting illegal immigration spreads far from Mexican border"
"US volunteer groups fight illegal immigration"

Immigration2005b · Wed, 07/20/2005 - 09:50 · · Importance: 1