as american as enchiladas

If they're not coming until October, why do they call them Minutemen?
Mexicans leaving now from the interior on foot will arrive in Houston before that, just in time to be videotaped by the Minutemen as they seek day labor on North Shepherd.
In their defense, it is clear that leaders of the Minutemen, volunteers who spent their summer vacation patrolling the Arizona border, know they are a sideshow.
After all, from a practical standpoint, they are not the little boy with his finger in the dam. They're the little boy with his finger in the waves.
No, they don't represent a serious approach to solving the very real illegal immigration problems.
Their job is to raise the alarm, not an alarm to arouse the militia to fend off the British.

An alarm to attract the media hordes.

They do it with political theater, and it's working. They're getting lots of attention. In fact, at some of their events, it appears the media outnumber them.
The media love controversy, but ironically that means the Minutemen are getting publicity for those who disagree with them.
So this week, a pack of television cameras were set up in the July heat outside St. Anne's Catholic Church to hear from church leaders and politicians who have little patience for those who would demonize immigrants, or at least arrest them on sight.