[JURIST] The Minuteman Project [project website], a civilian border patrol group that has already claimed credit for alerting federal authorities to over 300 illegal border crossings from Mexico, announced Tuesday that it wants to expand its operations northwards to the much longer Canadian border. A spokesman said that the group hopes to establish citizen patrols for Idaho, Michigan, North Dakota and Vermont. Minuteman patrols are scheduled to begin near San Diego by June and across the entire US-Mexico border by October. The group's leaders say they are taking action in the absence of adequate measures by the official US Border Patrol [official website] to properly secure the borders and stop illegal immigrants coming in to the United States. US government officials all the way up to the President have said they are opposed to vigilante groups and that border security is properly the business of the Border Patrol. AP has more.