There's a problem in Fallbrook, and it's not with the local peaceful protesters. The town's Catholic church, St. Peter's, has decided that U.S. immigration laws don't apply to them. This church operates a formal day labor hiring center for known illegal aliens in their driveway 50 feet from their preschool and playground. Monday through Saturday, St. Peter's aids and abets dozens of illegal aliens (felony), assists them to find employment (felony) and encourages parishioners to hire the illegal aliens (another felony). Father Bud Kaicher knows this, yet he openly proclaims that the church's laws trump our immigration laws, which are designed to maintain fair and orderly immigration in the most generous, welcoming nation in the world.

The local residents are fed up with this lawlessness and political activism by the leaders of St. Peter's. Father Bud's arrogance has surprised and angered much of the community and his own members. On Saturday mornings, hardly any of his parishioners are there supporting his position against the American protesters. Instead, local alien activists Claudia Smith, Tina Jillings and their friends bus in dozens of Latino students from Palomar College to counterprotest.

With all the recent problems in the Catholic Church, you would think they would want to bring people together, not divide them on as hot an issue as immigration.

On July 14, a local Hispanic church supporter confronted and attacked Minuteman Kiani Garcia and smashed his camera on the public sidewalk. Details and video at www.SanDiegoMinutemen.com. This behavior from the Latino activists has become all too common at our public demonstrations lately. Their selfish La Raza attitude has been very apparent, especially since the defeat of their amnesty in Congress last month.

Recently in San Diego, a few local church leaders have joined forces with Mexican government representative Enrique Morones and other open-border activists to offer sanctuary to aliens ordered deported, in direct defiance of federal law. Rev. Mary Moreno Richardson has offered St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral in San Diego to illegal aliens whom judges have ordered to leave the country. On the church's Web site, www.stpaulcathedral.org, their home page shows Morones, who is Catholic, giving communion to parishioners along with Rev. Moreno Richardson at the Protestant church.

So in the midst of America's simmering illegal immigration crisis, we have a few rebel churches that want to see how many laws they can get away with breaking in order to fill their pews with foreign citizens and keep the money flowing in. Most Americans think that's unacceptable and we are speaking out. The first thing we must all do is obey the law.

If you hire illegal aliens, for whatever reason, stop it! It's a felony crime and it begets more illegals coming here. In San Diego County, there is no excuse to hire illegal workers. Hire American Marines and Sailors at www.HirePatriots.com and/or pay American workers a decent living wage. If we stop hiring illegals, most will return to their home countries and their families, and our communities will be much safer.

Vista resident Jeff Schwilk is the founder of the San Diego Minutemen, an anti-illegal immigration group based in North County.