Hunting Latinos in Sunny Arizona

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Down in Douglas, Arizona, ranchers are stirring up a good old fashion nativist sentiment. This past Saturday, the Cochise County Concerned Citizens held a meeting to build support for ranchers who are gathering posses to detain those who look like illegal immigrants. In the past two years, a local rancher and former sheriff, Roger Barnett, has claimed to detain up to 3,000 illegal immigrants.

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Stops based on race or ethnic appearance send the underlying
message to all our citizens that those who are not white are
judged by the color of their skin alone. ... Such stops also
send a clear message that those who are not white enjoy a lesser
degree of constitutional protection--that they are in effect assumed
to be potential criminals first and and individuals second.
        --U.S. vs. German Espinoza Montero Camargo
        No. 97-50643 (April 2000 - Ninth Circuit)

Early last month marked a victory for dignity and equal justice in America. The Ninth Circuit Court ruled that the Border Patrol could not stop a person based on "Hispanic appearance". Unfortunately, the case involved a search that turned up both a weapon and drugs. This is the balance of American justice as intended. While one guilty man gets away with committing a crime, it is outweighed by the plethora of citizens in the area who get to live life without having federal authorities let them know that a darker skin color allows them to be judged as criminals. If only one innocent person has the opportunity to miss being judged as a drug trafficker and illegal immigrant, it is worth it. It sounds like a very simple concept I remember from third grade. You're innocent until proven guilty and there must be probable cause. Is skin probably cause?

Down in Douglas, Arizona, ranchers are stirring up a good old fashion nativist sentiment. This past Saturday, the Cochise County Concerned Citizens held a meeting to build support for ranchers who are gathering posses to detain those who look like illegal immigrants. In the past two years, a local rancher and former sheriff, Roger Barnett, has claimed to detain up to 3,000 illegal immigrants. The meeting was joined by David Duke's National Organization For European American Rights (NOFEAR), Voice of Citizens Together (American Patrol), and the Ku Klux Klan.

Don't worry. They'll tell you they're not racist. According to one account, they asked some Klan members to leave after flyers were found on car windshields at the gathering in Sierra Vista. It's all about protecting the borders from drug traffickers, vandals, and a "Mexican invasion". The whole group sympathizes with those in search of a better situation. At the same meeting a member of the California Coalition for Immigration Reform described those who enter illegally as "the illegal alien savages who kill their [the ranchers] livestock and slit their watchdogs' throats, ... burglarize their homes and threaten the physical safety of their loved ones." In another interview, one rancher points at several people running across his property and says, "Those people right there, I don't know nothing about them. All I know is they're human beings from somewhere else, and they have no loyalty to the country, and they're moving by my home." This starts to sound more like propaganda and less like concern for your fellow man or property.

I don't think anyone supports drug trafficking, burglary, or even illegal entry into this country. These ranchers have a real concern. People are trespassing on their property every day. The government should be able to meet their security concerns. Everyone has the right to control his or her land and property. The danger is when these men and women leave their property and actively search for "illegal immigrants" on the highway, as they have admitted doing on a regular basis. This is not the protection of personal property. When the advertisements were placed offering free room and board to anyone wanting to vacation in Arizona and help secure the border, they invited strangers who had an interest in tracking humans based on physical appearance. That is racial profiling.

So far, those who have forcibly detained migrants have stated it has been non-violent. They simply ask (in broken Spanish) for the migrants to follow them to a location to wait for the Border Patrol, and the migrants comply. The key players say they never draw their weapons. Others appear on the news waving their weapons and barking directions to people lying on the ground. So, are these migrants thugs or innocents? Are the ranchers patriots defending a "Mexican Invasion" or vigilantes hunting people based on their ethnicity? It seems the story changes depending on the location of the nearest soapbox. The rhetoric bounces between the "Mexican Invasion" and "peaceful". They say it's not about racism, but they haven't mentioned the criteria they use for pulling someone over.

This episode can be reduced to protecting personal property or old-fashioned U.S. nativism. It absolutely cannot be called patriotism. Patriotism is not leaving your house for the goal of hunting someone based on their physical appearance and then using weapons to make them do your will. This sounds more like the strange fruit of the south a hundred years ago than a celebration of the ideal U.S. values.

Now that bodies are starting to turn up, we all have to ask ourselves about the price of vigilantes. The price on attaching imagined crimes or thte crimesof others based onappearances. Forget the "cost of immigration" for fifteen seconds. Think about the values we tell the rest of the world we have. Do you have dark straight hair? Do you have well defined cheek bones? Do you have skin with a shade between olive and dark? Do you have Mexican features? Are you of Mediterranean origin? If you answered no to all of these, I would say that you're safe driving in Cochise County in lower Arizona. I'd say that if it weren't for those who shoot randomly into the dark whenever they hear a noise. I'd say we're safe if we didn't have to wonder who they might target next.

"They are in effect assumed to be potential criminals first and individuals second." I can tell you as an American citizen and a student of history, it's hard to invoke a fear greater than being hunted because of your skin, nationality or religion.

Discuss in the Forum: Should they be prosecuted?

Don't Miss These Resources

  • Fun In The Sun - A scanned image of the original Ad inviting folks down to the border for fun in the sun. This is a GIF format and may take a moment to load.

    Groups Supporting the Vigilantes

  • American Patrol - Voices of Citizens Together brings you negative news stories focusing on Mexico and Latinos in the United States.
  • California Coalition for Immigration Reform - The co-authors of Proposition 187 which won the popular sentiment of the voters, but was struck down by the courts bit by bit for being unconstitutional.
  • David Duke - The National Organization For European American Rights seeks to protect the civil rights of European-Americans.
  • Federation for American Immigration Reform - This group fights legal and illegal immigration.
  • Ku Klux Klan - A history of the Klan from a supporting point of view.
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