Most of the immigrants who come to St. George are here for one reason only, said Rosa Martinez, who publishes a bilingual English-Spanish newspaper, La Voz Latina de Utah, and distributes it free around St. George.

"I think this group has a lot of confusion and misinformation about the Latino community," said Martinez, who, along with her husband, Jose, is very active with Hispanic Unidos. "We were not invited to their meetings. I don't understand them. The thing that is sad is that we are living in 2004-2005, and again and again we hear words of racism and hate. We have a nice community. We have to work together, but I don't know how to do that with them."

Tony Yapias, director of the state Office of Hispanic Affairs, was in St. George Friday to meet with Martinez and other members of Hispanic Unidos to discuss some of those concerns.

"One of the reasons why I come here is to help empower the Hispanic community and to let them know that even though we're hundreds of miles away in Salt Lake City, we're aware of their concerns," Yapias said. "We're here to build positive community relations and to help bring more people into the Hispanic Unidos organization. We need to be supportive of one another."

Yapias, an American citizen from Peru, said he believes the Citizens Group on Illegal Immigration is creating "uneasiness in the community."

"For many people who came to Utah from Central and South America, it was for religion and jobs," he said. "We're the backbone of the community, in some ways. We do the jobs other people won't take, and we do them with dignity, passion and loyalty."

Francisco Aguirre said he went to the first two meetings of the citizens group and didn't like what he heard.

"We are not here to defend criminals. We are here to do something for all these good families," said Aguirre, who twice crossed the Mexican-American border illegally as a young man before doing it legally. He became an American citizen 20 years ago and said he now helps other immigrants gain their citizenship.

But it's those kinds of stories that bother members of the citizens group.

"Once you go down the road of ignoring the rule of law, it corrupts the whole system," said Sears. "We want to be sure that St. George and Washington County never become a sanctuary for illegal aliens."

Linda Jones, who chairs the group's American culture committee, said she is hoping to "promote the orderly integration of people from Mexico into our country."

"There's a limit to how many new people we can integrate at any one time," she said. "We need to give immigrants the time to get assimilated before letting more people in here."

Jim Flohr, who provided a book review to the group, said illegal immigration affects every aspect of life in America.