HOUSTON, TX -- Minuteman Civil Defense Corp. President Chris Simcox who has taken up the cause of combating illegal immigration on his own hands brought his recruiting efforts to Houston on Sunday, August 14. Simcox compares the group's border surveillance to that of a neighborhood watch. Simcox, who trained about 30, volunteers in Houston Sunday, said, "we are the nation's largest neighborhood watch program."



But the four-day training session for members of the controversial Minuteman Civil Defense Corps turned heated Sunday when a LULAC leader confronted one of the group's members. The incident took place during a press conference in the parking lot of the West Houston Airport, where members trained for an upcoming October border watch.



"How do you determine that a person isn't documented when you see them on the streets?" Dovalina asked the man. "Just because they are Hispanic? Is that the criteria you use to take their picture and take their license plate down?" Dovalina said if the volunteers are unhappy with elected officials there's a way to replace them. "You can't take things into your own hands," he said.



Rick Dovalina, a former national president and current district director for the League of United Latin American Citizens, got into a verbal scuffle with Minuteman member Bill Braux. Dovalina tried to make the point to him Sunday by writing down the man's license plate number while it was parked at the airport in a lot where Simcox was talking to the media. Braux confronted Dovalina.



"You have the right and I don't?" Dovalina shouted at Braux, who kept asking why he needed his license plate number.



Dovalina said LULAC is concerned about how the Minutemen will be able to distinguish Hispanics who are undocumented from those who are citizens.