The slate-gray light of a wintry morning hung over the 7-Eleven parking lot just after sunrise yesterday when a murmur rippled through the crowd of men gathered there: "Look, they are coming."
Heads turned in unison to a dozen people moving toward them on Elden Street in Herndon. Although the men's clothing -- work boots and bluejeans -- revealed them as day laborers, the new group wore warm winter coats and snug-fitting gloves and carried cameras with long lenses, a camcorder, a couple of walkie-talkies and a clipboard list of license plate numbers collected on previous visits.
"The day is ruined. They're going to scare off the employers," Alex Aleman, a 32-year-old Honduran in a black ski cap, told his friends in Spanish. "When they come, we don't eat."
.......
The Minutemen train their lenses on contractors who drive to the lot at Elden Street and Alabama Drive to hire the day laborers, many of whom are in the country illegally. They say they plan to hand the photographs to the Internal Revenue Service for investigation.
The two groups never speak. Separated by only a few feet, they are worlds apart.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/08/AR2005120802068.html