During a discussion of a December 9 Wall Street Journal editorial on immigration on the December 9 edition of CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight, host Lou Dobbs announced, “I support the Minuteman Project and the fine Americans who make it up in all they've accomplished, fully, relentlessly, and proudly.”

The Minuteman Project describes its movement as “a call to bring national awareness to the decades-long careless disregard of effective U.S. immigration law enforcement. It is a reminder to Americans that our nation was founded as a nation governed by the 'rule of law', not by the whims of mobs of ILLEGAL aliens who endlessly stream across U.S. borders.” Among its activities is the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, groups of volunteers who monitor U.S. borders with Mexico and Canada to help stop what it calls "[t]he human flood breaching our Homeland Defense." The Minuteman Project has been touted by conservative outlets such as Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, which has featured Minuteman organizers and supporters, often without providing an opposing viewpoint.

The Journal editorial examined a December 6 congressional election in California in which Minuteman Project organizer Jim Gilchrist, who campaigned as an independent on the issue of immigration, received 24 percent of the vote to winner Jim Campbell's (R) 45 percent. Dobbs objected to the Journal's characterization of Campbell's withdrawal of support for the guest-worker provision of President Bush's immigration reform as “panicking” in the face of Gilchrist's challenge, claiming instead that Campbell is “smart enough to listen to the concerns of his new constituents.” Gilchrist was a guest on the December 7 edition of Lou Dobbs Tonight.

From the December 9 edition of CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight:

DOBBS: All right. [CNN correspondent] Bill Tucker, thank you very much. The lead editorial in The Wall Street Journal this morning is entitled “Immigration (Spin) Control.” And then, without embarrassment or even a remote sense of irony, goes on to spin the issues of border security and illegal immigration. The Journal editorial writer, in fact, managed in limited space to confuse illegal immigration and legal immigration, dismiss the significance of border security altogether, and while the Journal pandered to big business and the open-borders advocates, it managed to suggest the Republican winner of the Orange County, California, congressional election is panicked because he's smart enough to listen to the concerns of his new constituents and to insist on border security before he pledges to take on the issue of immigration reform.

At the same time, the Journal editorial basically suggested that [Fox News host] Bill O'Reilly and I are somehow relentless in our support of the Minuteman Project, the volunteer group that works hard to bring attention to our border security crisis. And I just want to be clear to the Journal and to this audience: I support the Minuteman Project and the fine Americans who make it up in all they've accomplished, fully, relentlessly, and proudly.