ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) – The Minuteman Project is bringing its lawn chairs and border-watchers to the Northeast next month, but its quest to catch illegal immigrants has a small problem.

Co-founder Chris Simcox says simply, “People on the East Coast couldn’t care less.”

Bad news for an organization that depends on volunteers.

The group’s been highly visible since arriving on the Arizona-Mexico border this spring. Since then, it’s tried to build a presence in every state along America’s borders, with mixed results.

Now the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps plans to launch in New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine on Oct. 1, but so far, Simcox says, no border residents are helping.

An organizational meeting on Long Island earlier this month already drew dozens of protesters, some accusing the group of being anti-immigrant or racist.

“We’ve seen some aggressive opposition in the New York area,” Simcox said during a phone interview. “It’s a sign that terrorism is alive and well in this country.”

He said the monthlong project does have about 250 volunteers, with about 40 people planned for New York. But they come from places like Connecticut, New York City and Delaware – urban areas hours away.

“These are not people who live close to the border,” Simcox said. And since most of the largely rural land along the border is privately owned, the group would need local permission to operate.

The low number of volunteers means the project can’t have round-the-clock patrols. Simcox himself will spend most of his time on the southern border.

The October project will take the same approach as down south. “We pull up in our trucks, set up lawn chairs and pull out the binoculars,” Simcox said. “If we observe anything, we report it to the Border Patrol and local law enforcement. No contact, no taking the law into our own hands.”

In Arizona, the site of the group’s first project, Simcox said volunteers helped catch 335 immigrants.

Volunteers will be at observation posts at busy areas, such as the Champlain point of entry by the New York-Vermont border. They’ll also be looking for smuggling. The Border Patrol says 134 criminal aliens have been caught since Oct. 1, 2004, around the Champlain point of entry in New York. During the same time, 2,165 pounds of marijuana have been seized.

Simcox says he’s “done some scouting” with the Border Patrol in the region in recent weeks. But all three Border Patrol sectors in the Northeast say they’ve had no contact with Simcox or the Minuteman Project.

“We don’t work with them,” said Ross DeLacy, a Border Patrol spokesman for the Swanton, Vt., district. “We don’t encourage them to patrol the border and mimic what we do.”

October’s project will give the Minuteman group a presence in almost every state along the U.S. northern border, which is twice as long as the southern border but with about one-tenth of the Border Patrol presence.

Even some Indian reservations in the Northwest have let the project set up posts, Simcox says. But that’s not working in the Northeast, though he says the group has approached all area reservations.

“They said, No, no, no. Stay out of our business.”‘

He can’t quite explain the region’s cool reaction.

“It’s partly apathy. It’s partly that people don’t think it’s a big deal. So what if somebody crosses the border? I don’t know if it’s politics or what.”

Al Strack, commander of the American Legion in Champlain, says, “To start with, we don’t see the people coming over in droves. We know it does occur around us, but it’s not a common-day subject. That’s probably why people aren’t getting all excited.”

But Simcox says the Minuteman Project is coming just the same.

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On the Net:

Minuteman Project: http://www.minutemanhq.org

U.S. Customs and Border Protection: http://www.cbp.gov

AP-ES-09-21-05 1243EDT