One of the busiest border areas in recent years has been an 80-mile stretch in Arizona s Cochise County. The most notorious vigilantes there are Roger and Don Barnett, who boast of rounding up more than 3,000 undocumented immigrants on their 22,000-acre ranch near the town of Douglas. The Barnetts often venture onto highways, where they pull over suspected illegal aliens, as Roger calls them, and hold them until Border Patrol agents arrive. Once last year, the Barnetts held 27 undocumented immigrants at gunpoint until the Border Patrol arrived to arrest them. The vigilantes are part of a national movement.
Web site warns of a Mexican invasion and a re-conquering of the Southwest.
VCT President Glenn Spencer and CCIR chair Barbara Coe helped promote California s Proposition 187, a 1994 ballot initiative that outlawed services to undocumented immigrants and barred their children from attending public schools. On May 13, VCT led a rally of 250 anti-immigrant activists and vigilantes in Sierra Vista, Arizona, southeast of Tucson. At the rally, Coe blamed government apathy for forcing ranchers to defend our borders and defend themselves from the illegal alien savages. The vigilantes operate with the sympathy of some state and federal officials. INS Commissioner Doris Meissner says ranchers have legitimate concerns about the trespassers on their property.