Nativists fan flames of US immigration debate

PHOENIX, Dec 26 (Reuters) Reaching into the back of a truck, US anti-immigration activist Don Pauly grabs a Mexican flag, a can of lighter fuel and an aluminum baking tray and heads to the curbside outside the Mexican consulate.

As a small group of police officers, protesters and puzzled bystanders look on, he douses the green, red and white flag with fuel and spits on it for good measure, while an eye-patch wearing accomplice strikes a match.

''We need to get rid of all those who are destroying our country,'' Pauly said as the national colors of United States' southern neighbor flamed out on the sidewalk in central Phoenix earlier this month. ''We are being invaded.'' The founder of the Emigration Party of Nevada is among a growing number of nativists from across the United States that have been stepping up direct action in recent months to make a stand on the issues of illegal immigration and border security.

The milder end of the spectrum includes the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, who spot for illegal entrants crossing the borders from Mexico and Canada, and councilors in towns and cities from California to Pennsylvania who vote to curb landlords from renting to undocumented immigrants.

The wilder fringe stretches from activists who burn Mexican flags -- like Pauly and his eye patch-wearing companion Laine Lawless -- to brutal thugs like a Texan teenager sentenced to 90 years in jail in December for sodomizing a Hispanic youth with a pole.

''We have seen an explosion of these groups, a real prairie fire that has spread across the country in quite an amazing way,'' said Mark Potok, the director of the Southern Poverty Law Center's intelligence project, which has tracked their rise.

''What's really amazing ... is how vicious this movement has become,'' he added.

SNIPER TEAMS ON THE BORDER Nativist activism has been around for centuries in the United States. Some analysts trace it to the gangs who battled newcomers on the streets of New York in the 1800s, while others date it to the Ku Klux Klan's rants against Mexican immigrants in the last century.

All agree that it has mushroomed amid growing security concerns since the September 11 2001 attacks. The Southern Poverty Law Center estimates that there are now more than 140 nativist groups taking direct action on the borders with Mexico and Canada or targeting the ten million to 12 million illegal aliens living in the United States.

''We are seeing the radicalization of the existing vigilante groups, we're seeing more and more interaction between existing anti-immigration groups and genuinely white supremacist groups, Neo-Nazis and so on, and a rise in hate crimes against Hispanics,'' said Potok.

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