An entry in the Third of July Parade stirred controversy, and now the parade’s committee plans to review whether it would allow it next year.

The entry came from Minnesota Coalition for Immigration Reduction. It had a large yellow sign with moveable letters, and it was pulled by a Hummer. The sign’s message on both sides said: “Illegal immigrants cost jobs, hospitals and courts.”

Near the corner of Bridge Avenue and Fountain Street on the parade route, children threw rocks at the sign, and one rock missed, hitting a woman in the face. She was taken by ambulance to Albert Lea Medical Center. The Freeborn County Attorney’s Office will review the police report and decide whether to file charges.

The Albert Lea-Freeborn County Chamber of Commerce sponsors the parade, but it does not organize the parade. A committee of local residents organizes the parade.

Tami Riecke, operations manager for the chamber and a parade committee member, said the parade committee has the right to pick and choose entries without having to make specific guidelines. However, it does have guidelines, which are printed on the parade application. The parade costs about $5,000.

Riecke said the entry’s parade application mentioned the Minnesota Coalition for Immigration Reduction. The application did not state what the sign would say. The committee has six people, with 128 entries to handle and 25,000 spectators, so when the sign was in the staging grounds, the committee members were busy giving instructions. Next, the sign was heading down Bridge Avenue, when pulling it out would have delayed the entire parade.

“More volunteers on the parade committee would be welcomed,” Riecke said. “They can contact me at the chamber.”

She said spectators have made positive comments about this year’s Third of July Parade, which was on the rebound after a severe thunderstorm prompted the cancellation of the 2007 parade. Riecke and the parade committee were scrutinized last year by upset spectators and entries over that cancellation. This year, many people were impressed by the parade’s comeback, she said.

Now that a person has been hurt, she said the parade committee has to decide what to do about messages that could be construed as inflammatory by spectators.

“The committee has to decide on whether to keep or ban them,” Riecke said.

She said the committee also will likely discuss differences between politicians and political messages, and she said the committee probably will go over its desire for more entries to decorate and to fit the parade theme. The theme this year was “Echoes of the Past.”

Albert Lea resident Paul Westrum, founder of the Minnesota Coalition for Immigration Reduction, said the throwing of rocks shows the degradation of society. “What happened was unfortunate.”

He said his group hasn’t learned who the children were.

“More than likely they were here illegally, and we were surprised they could read the sign,” Westrum said. “It’s unfortunate if you can’t state your opinion and free speech, what can be done?”

He said his entry should be allowed again in next year’s parade even if it doesn’t fit the theme.

“What about fire trucks? Do they fit the parade theme?” he asked.

Westrum said he is a afraid the Minnesota Coalition for Immigration Reduction will be singled out and he mentioned possibly going to court if the group isn’t allowed an entry in the 2009 parade.

A writer of a letter to the editor in today’s newspaper, Ted Hinnenkamp, called the sign a “hate message.”

“The message, to me, reads like baring false witness against our neighbors — that is, Mexican people. Nativist groups in America have been around since probably about 1790 so their message today is really nothing more than regurgitated rubbish from a past we are not so proud of and certainly do not want to repeat,” Hinnenkamp wrote.