The national Minuteman organization has been labeled by President George W. Bush, other federal, state and local officials and human rights watchdogs as a vigilante group of racists, particularly toward Latino and Hispanic populations, but Funk said nothing could be farther from the truth. "The Minuteman operation is a non-partisan effort by concerned citizens who want to seal the national borders (to preclude illegal aliens from entering) and force government officials to abide by the oath they took to uphold the Constitution of the United States as pertains to protecting the American people," said Funk, who is retired from the U.S. Air Force and a local college.