REPORTER: Nick Lazaredes
In southern Arizona, less than a mile from the Mexican border, a hunt is getting under way. This motley bunch of part-time vigilantes is armed and ready to defend its homeland against intruders from the south.
CHRIS SIMCOX, CIVIL HOMELAND DEFENCE FOUNDER: OK, I've got fresh tracks over here. In fact, these are probably from earlier today. This is a major freeway, and this is a large branch. I mean we pulled probably 700 people out of here since we discovered it. That's one trail.
Chris Simcox is a former school teacher who founded this militia group, Civil Homeland Defence, last year. Every weekend they head out here to round up illegal immigrants.
CHRIS SIMCOX: We're just here checking our backyards. We've never found anyone out here that was not an illegal alien, you know, an illegal intruder into our country.
Chris stays in constant radio contact with the authorities, the US Border Patrol.
CHRIS SIMCOX: Oh, gees. Holy cow. Everybody copy that? Holy cow. We've got Border Patrol right now on an armed - chasing an armed group and shots have been fired.
Soon, word comes through from the Border Patrol that the militia has visitors.
CHRIS SIMCOX: We got a group running around in here. How come he cut out? Does he copy you? Try it.
CARMEN: CP, can you copy me? Give us another location.
CHRIS SIMCOX: Yeah, I've got 'em right here.
CARMEN: They're running.
CHRIS SIMCOX: Back off, Carmen, back off.
Chris thinks the people we spotted weren't immigrants, but the advance scouts, known as coyotes, who are paid to guide them. He decides to call off the chase.
CHRIS SIMCOX: They've already made the ridge on the other side of the trailer. I say we call it. These must be some bad dudes man, they don't want to give up. I don't like this. Next fence we stop.
But according to Chris Simcox, his group is more fearful of the Mexicans than they are of the vigilantes.
CHRIS SIMCOX: Not one person's ever been harmed. We've been threatened many times. We've had some groups on the ground who, you know, swore, well, told us point blank that if we didn't have guns, that they would kill us and that they want to get into America no matter what.
As the light begins to fade, the hunt starts in earnest.
VOICE ON RADIO: Down into the trees and they're headed your way, so could you update your position?
CHRIS SIMCOX: I'm radio three. They're right there.
CARMEN: Right here, if you guys are all right by the cattle guard, just come across.
A group of 25 Mexicans, including children, is found waiting patiently for their guides. No-one attempts to resist or even run.
CHRIS SIMCOX: American citizens? ID? United States citizens? No?
Chris tells the group that the immigration authorities are coming to collect them. There's nothing to do now, but wait.
In response to the vigilantes' citizen's arrest of the Mexicans, a Black Hawk helicopter is called in to assist. The Black Hawk circles the group, guiding the way as US Border Patrol agents drive to the location.
CHRIS SIMCOX: We arranged to bring this Black Hawk helicopter in here, huh? I'm telling you why.
Soon, the authorities arrive to take over from the militia.
MAN, (Translation): You all stop now. Stand in line. I told you to stand in line! Hands up. Follow us. Follow us.
The Mexicans will be taken to an immigration service processing centre, fingerprinted and photographed and, provided they're not wanted by the police, will be driven back over the border and dropped off in Mexico. But the night is still early.
Just minutes after Border Patrol leaves, Chris Simcox and his militia uncover another group of people hidden in the wilderness.
CARMEN: Here, we've got more. No, we've got plenty here.
CHRIS SIMCOX: I'm coming. Somebody stay here. Somebody stay here. Somebody stay here.
This is an even larger group and Chris is worried that he and his militia will be in trouble if they decide to run.
CHRIS SIMCOX: Back off! I am backing off. Stay back. I got four more that ran back in here.
CARMEN: We got another group, we need Border Patrol.
CHRIS SIMCOX: You're an American citizen? No? We got some more on the run. Oh, boy! Slippery little guys. Here we go, come on, man. You don't want to stay out here all by yourself, do ya? You've got to be with your friends.
As the migrants are rounded up, it's apparent that this group contains a number of young children.
CHRIS SIMCOX: Three, four, five, six, seven kids.
REPORTER: Is this more children than you usually see?
CHRIS SIMCOX: Yes, this is a lot more children than we usually see. Usually make maybe two in a group, one, two.
This is incredible. I got 21. Somebody else count. Don't come here to take our jobs. You're all going to come in legally. Legal no problemo. Legal. Don't sneak into our country any more.
Since October last year, Chris's militia has rounded up over 1,300 undocumented migrants and handed them over to the authorities.
CHRIS SIMCOX: This is very typical, every night, night after night after night. They think it's a game and it is a game. It's a game because the United States doesn't or is not firm enough and again we need this message to Vicente Fox and to the people of Mexico that we mean business. But they don't - they think border patrol's a joke.
VIGILANTE, (Translation): We won't harm you in any way. But until the border patrol arrives you'll have to remain seated on the ground.
MIGRANT: We need to go to Mexico?
CHRIS SIMCOX: No, can't do that.
MIGRANT: Why? One chance, please.
With such massive numbers of people flooding across the border every day, the authorities have been overwhelmed and citizens' militia groups like this one have taken on the job of protecting America's borders.
JENNIFER ALLEN, BORDER ACTION NETWORK: It's not the role of civilians by any means to be, essentially kidnapping people. They're holding people against their will with the threat of violence, and in some cases direct violence - I mean, it's kidnapping.
Jennifer Allen is a human rights activist who first raised the alarm about vigilante action on the US border in Arizona.
JENNIFER ALLEN: The fact that they continue to do their unlawful detentions and harassments and chase people down with dogs, contributes to an anti - a larger anti-immigrant environment in the state. It says that it's OK to hunt Mexicans, it's OK to hunt immigrants and it's OK to target people based upon their immigration status whatever it may be.
The US Border Patrol refused to give Dateline a formal interview, but according to human rights activists, the authorities are not only turning a blind eye to the vigilantes' activities, they're encouraging them.
JENNIFER ALLEN: The Border Patrol has not condemned these groups at all and, in fact, is very complicit. One of the legal arguments that groups have been pushing, particularly the American Civil Liberties Union, is the fact that the Border Patrol continued to show up and respond to the vigilantes, means that they've sort of de facto deputised them.
In the Arizona wild west town of Tombstone, vigilantes are part of local history. It's from here that Chris Simcox's border militia group has drawn most of its volunteers. This is the town that witnessed the reign of Wyatt Earp and Doc Halliday, the vigilante heroes who cleared Tombstone of its outlaws, starting with their legendary shoot-out at the O.K. Corral.
TOMBSTONE THEATRE, GOOD GUY: I happen to be a good guy and I've got a gun. Good guy!
BAD GUY: Come on, you cowards, this is a gunfight, not a ballet! You can make more noise than that, I'm the bad guy!
Now the only glimpse into Tombstone's bloody past is a vaudeville-style show put on for the tourists.
GOOD GUY: You ready for a gunfight? Did you bring your guns? Well, how are you going to shoot back?
When Chris Simcox moved here from California early last year, his first job was in this very show. But Simcox had higher ambitions, and calling on his retirement savings, he bought the town's ailing newspaper - 'The Tombstone Tumbleweed'.
CHRIS SIMCOX: Good paper last week, I'm happy.
Simcox says local citizens were fed up with the constant flow of migrants across the border. Late last year, he used his paper for a dramatic call to arms.
CHRIS SIMCOX: For 10 years people in Cochise county have been going to Washington, begging for help with this problem. They've continued to ignore it. Enough is enough. The citizens chose to do the job themselves, to take a stand, to get up out of our lazy boys, turn off the television, and actually force the government to address the problem by going out and doing it ourselves and challenging them to do the right thing.
Chris Simcox wants to show me one of the reasons why residents here are so angry about illegal immigration.
CHRIS SIMCOX: Oh, airline tickets, bus tickets - they come from all over the world.
This dried-up riverbed is used as a meeting point by the migrants. We find piles of discarded water bottles, clothes and backpacks.
CHRIS SIMCOX: You want me to take you down here to show you the human faeces? I didn't show you that. I could show you El Banio. You know, human faeces, you saw the trash. This is a horrible biohazard situation. And now we have people dying in our county, 28 people, since the first of the year, have died in our county. That's unacceptable. That's a biohazard. We don't need people dying in our backyards.
Last year, nearly 150 people died in the desert near here. For human rights activists, like this group gathered near Tucson, this isn't a public health issue, but rather a humanitarian crisis. Kat Rodriguez is an American, who's proud of her Hispanic ancestry. Like many in America's south-west, she's descended from people who lived in this area long before white Americans. She says many of those driving vigilante-style action on the border, like Chris Simcox, have moved into the area to promote racism.
KAT RODRIGUEZ, DERECHOS HUMANOS COATITION: They've come to this area, and they're racist. That's like, you know, moving to Africa and saying, "What's up with all the black people?" I mean, you've come to an area that is bordered with Mexico and there is a huge, you know - our group was divided - it's the same people, it's the same blood, it's the same culture. They come in and then they're annoyed that Mexico's so close, you know.
Rodriguez works for a human rights group which has been investigating allegations of vigilante violence against undocumented migrants. Few are reported, and those that are remain unsolved.
One of the most disturbing incidents occurred last year when a group of 12 migrants, who'd just crossed the border, were sheltering at stockyards north of Tucson.
KAT RODRIGUEZ: A truck pulled up and two individuals got out in camouflage gear and just opened fire on people. Everyone went scattering and running. One man got away and actually made it to a nearby ranch and was telling the rancher, "The soldiers are going to kill me, the soldiers are going to kill me." And the man was like, you know, this is the United States, we don't have that here, you know. He called the police. The next morning they went out there. They found two migrants dead and, from the tracks, the other nine were rounded up into a vehicle and nobody knows what happened to them to this day. Nobody knows.
But the majority of people dying on America's southern frontier are dying from natural causes. When the summer temperatures start pushing up the mercury, the death rate soars. This year, up to 300 people are expected to perish in the harsh conditions. Although the US Border Patrol wouldn't agree to a formal interview about vigilante activists in Arizona, it did allow Dateline to film two of its search and rescue officers at work - Julie and David attending to a Mexican man they spotted sitting in the bushes.
JULIE; When they come out and sit on the side of the road, they've given up. He's hurt, he hurt his knee, his group left him, last night, I think. Was it last night he said? Fortunately for him they left him close to a road, I guess, so he was able to find the road. But a lot of times, you know, the weak get left behind and they end up dying out there.
The man is starving, and these agents demonstrate nothing but courtesy and compassion. But other Border Patrol officers have been accused of violating human rights.
JENNIFER ALLEN: This summer we've had two Border Patrol agents shoot and kill migrants who did absolutely nothing. In one case in June, there was a man who was actually running back across the border and he was shot six times by a Border Patrol agent. In another case, there was a man outside Nogales who was picked up by Border Patrol agents, severely beaten, deported and then a week later he died from his injuries.
This is the border that's proven so difficult to defend, and it's easy to see why. There's a simple barbed-wire fence and a broken sign warning would-be immigrants of the harsh desert conditions. Just a few metres away, a cattle grid makes crossing the border a breeze.
Julie and David say Border Patrol agents face an impossible task and they're sympathetic towards locals who take the law into their own hands.
DAVID: You look at it - if they're protecting their own property, I mean that's their right as American citizens to do that, so...
REPORTER: So it's a bit of a catch 22, you think?
DAVID: Yeah, I think so. I mean, they do have the right to do it and, you know, they have the right to protect their property.
LADY: Base to HT1, had a hit on sensor six. Reported 13 SVIs.
GLENN SPENCER: I'll Roger that, they're en route now.
LADY: 10/4, base clear.
GLENN SPENCER: OK, let's get going, guys. We're on our way. We're 45 minutes into the mission.
Another group of concerned citizens commences its hunt. Glenn Spencer, a prominent anti-immigration activist, has set up a non-profit organisation, called American Patrol. It's a kind of a high-tech militia with an array of sensors along the border in order to detect intruders.
GLENN SPENCER: We estimate probably 200 to 300 will come in here, through here any one night, maybe more, along this river. We just got a hit on one of your sensors down here.
Unlike Chris Simcox, Spencer doesn't detain the immigrants. He uses video cameras to film them and a portable satellite transmission tower to beam the images to his Internet website, before calling in the Border Patrol. At a private airport just a mile from the border, Spencer tests out his latest weapon to stem the flow of illegal immigrants - a pilotless aircraft flying up and down the US international boundary sending back live video as it goes. Soon he plans to have dozens of these spies in the sky to stop what he calls the reconquest of southwest America.
GLENN SPENCER: And so when people say they're only coming up here to get jobs, they're wrong. In fact, a lot of them believe, and are motivated by, the idea of coming and retaking this land in the name of Mexico. And I believe that 95% of the people who cross that border believe that.
VIDEOTAPE: America is being transformed almost overnight. A combination of legal and illegal immigration coupled with citizen children, or anchor babies, born to illegal aliens, is allowing Mexico to colonise the American southwest.
Spencer's conspiracy theory revolves around the Mexican takeover of ancient Aztec lands known as Aztlan. He's produced this video to publicise the danger.
VIDEOTAPE: And this colonisation is being done with the tacit approval of the American Government.
GLENN SPENCER: As I got into this over the years, I began to learn that there was a much more sinister dimension to this movement, that it is one of la Re Conquista - the taking back of land which they feel was stolen from them. It was not.
Like Chris Simcox, Glenn Spencer has moved here from California. Here, in Arizona's volatile border zone, his services are in high demand.
LES STAFFORD: The only thing I could tell you, Glenn, is you just have to pick up where they congregate here and just follow their trail.
GLENN SPENCER: Well, now is a good time because...
Glenn Spencer and his team have been called in to assist a landowner, Les Stafford, who's backyard has become a major transit point for illegal immigrants.
MAN: Are they coming over this saddle right here out? Are they coming right straight down Ramsey off the crest trail? We don't know. Once we find that information out, then we'll have a better chance of getting sensors out here to prepare YOU for them being here. You'll know they're coming before they get here.
LES STAFFORD: They walk over the mountains and there's a staging area there. They have a coyote with them who has a cell phone, I assume, and he calls whoever's gonna come and pick them up and the cars roll in, the vans roll in, they've run out of the trees. I've seen 30, 40 of them at a time come running out of the trees and get in vans and leave.
Although the immigrants haven't come into Les's house, he warns that there'll be trouble if they do.
LES STAFFORD: I've got an alarm on the house here and I carry a gun so, if they come, we're not leaving. They'll carry them out in a profile.
As Glenn and his boys inspect the property, it's clear this is a major staging area for illegal border crossers.
GLENN SPENCER: This is repeated hundreds if not thousands of times across this area.
The team makes plans to blanket the area with sensors, giving Les plenty of warning the next time a group comes through. As far as Les is concerned, Glenn Spencer is a true patriot.
LES STAFFORD: I think the man has got his country at heart and he's trying to do something to stop the illegals. He's trying to make the American public aware of what's going on in this country.
GLENN SPENCER: Is that a bottle of medicine there? Let me see.
But human rights activists think Glenn Spencer's motives are more sinister, comparing him to a well-known leader of the Ku Klux Klan.
JENNIFER ALLEN:..look at Spencer as sort of the high-tech version of David Duke. Whereas others put on white sheets, Glenn Spencer pulls out his cameras and his live satellite uplinks. The medium may be different but the message and the impact is still the same.
But Spencer says he's no racist.
GLENN SPENCER: Hell, I spent 10 years working with American Indians, fighting for their rights. My chief technician that I hired had to buy him a new Bronco to come work for us. This was a Mexican! And he had a white girlfriend to boot and I had to bring her aboard too, and he also had a Mexican wife and all of that stuff that any racist would not put up with, you know.
JENNIFER ALLEN: Just because Glenn Spencer may have a Jewish friend or a Native American friend does not excuse his actions, nor his words, which are very much geared towards hunting down immigrants, be them Mexicans, Central American, South American or Asian. The effect is still the same - that all people of colour are being targeted.
GLENN SPENCER: They even call it themselves La Re Conquista. They are taking back what they feel was lost as the result of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. And you...
Several published reports, including one from America's Anti Defamation League, claim to have found real links between Glenn Spencer and white supremacist organisations.
GLENN SPENCER: It's all created, fabricated. There isn't an ounce of truth in it, but it's revealing, it's revealing, when you look at someone with my background who is attacked in this way. It says more about the people who are attacking me than it does about me.
But the Anti Defamation League asserts Spencer's organisation has received financial and moral support from known hate groups who accept his Aztlan conspiracy.
KAT RODRIGUEZ: This rhetoric that he feeds out nationwide to groups that don't know us on the east coast from the hate mail that we get, they believe it. They truly believe that we are agents sent here to claim this land for Aztlan, which makes no sense.
CHRIS SIMCOX: Tell 'em we'll give 'em guns - revolution.
Chris Simcox has returned to the border for another nightly roundup.
CHRIS SIMCOX: Don't come any more. We've got citizens, American citizens, we say 'no'. No more. You go back, you fight Vicente Fox. Bang, bang, revolution. No jobs, no jobs? Revolution make jobs.
He's just detained a large group and tells them that the only answer to their problems is to overthrow the democratically elected government of President Vicente Fox.
CHRIS SIMCOX: Working? Fight your government. Get some guns, revolution. Vicente Fox - he's a crook! He put you guys out of work. NAFTA sucks.
They've all got nice clothes, brand new tennis shoes, brand new hats, they look like they came right off the street of any major city here in this country. These are not poor migrant workers. These are people who are coming here to take advantage of America.
Tonight's group were discovered after being tracked for more than two hours.
HENRY, (Translation): If I go to Mexico with no papers, they'll put me in jail.
WOMAN, (Translation): We'd let you into Mexico. Of course.
HENRY, (Translation): You and your friends risk ending up in jail.
Tired from the hunt, members of the militia, like Henry, who, in fact, has Mexican ancestry, express their anger.
HENRY: They're really surprised, they're really surprised that I'm doing this and they ask me "Why are you doing this?" and I said, "Because you guys are breaking our laws. If I went to Mexico with no documents I'd be arrested. So you're breaking the laws of this nation and I'm policing it and I told them, like I told the media, I'm an American first and I'm an Hispanic second.
VIGILANTE MAN: Because our major cities are being overrun now and turned into areas that look and act just like Mexico.
REPORTER: Do you feel though for the women and children...
VIGILANTE MAN: Of course. ..to see them terrified? Of course. Well, I don't see that they were so terrified, they're laughing and giggling and eating cookies.
HENRY: I feel bad for them but then I don't because don't live off our system. Too many men and women have died in this country and have died for this flag to be trampled on, disrespected by people who invade this country the way they do.
But for this group, the patriotic fervour of these self-appointed vigilantes means very little. Desperately poor, these people say they're forced to make the arduous journey north to find work to support their families.
MEXICAN, (Translation): We know the risk involved, but we're prepared to take it. That's all we want. We just want work. We don't come here to cause any trouble.
But Chris Simcox has no time for sob stories. He wants to see the introduction of much harsher penalties for border crossers, including detention.
CHRIS SIMCOX: I would detain them and I would put them in a work camp and I'd have them out here cleaning up and then they'd get sent back after that. Put a couple of bucks in their pocket and tell them "Don't come back." There must be a punishment, there needs to be a deterrent otherwise it's just a game.
On that point, even the Mexicans acknowledge this is a game of hide and seek they'll continue to play.
MEXICAN, (Translation): Tomorrow they'll send me home but I'll come straight back. I'll keep coming back until I get across. I've got to beat the surveillance. I'll manage to get across one day. I'll outwit the guards some day, even if it takes half a year.
Ultimately, despite the civilian patrols, the high-tech surveillance and the life-threatening desert conditions, poor migrants will continue to risk it all for a chance at prosperity.
REPORTER: NICK LAZAREDES EDITOR: KERRIE-ANN WALLACH
(Ref: 1929)
In southern Arizona, less than a mile from the Mexican border, a hunt is getting under way. This motley bunch of part-time vigilantes is armed and ready to defend its homeland against intruders from the south.
CHRIS SIMCOX, CIVIL HOMELAND DEFENCE FOUNDER: OK, I've got fresh tracks over here. In fact, these are probably from earlier today. This is a major freeway, and this is a large branch. I mean we pulled probably 700 people out of here since we discovered it. That's one trail.
Chris Simcox is a former school teacher who founded this militia group, Civil Homeland Defence, last year. Every weekend they head out here to round up illegal immigrants.
CHRIS SIMCOX: We're just here checking our backyards. We've never found anyone out here that was not an illegal alien, you know, an illegal intruder into our country.
Chris stays in constant radio contact with the authorities, the US Border Patrol.
CHRIS SIMCOX: Oh, gees. Holy cow. Everybody copy that? Holy cow. We've got Border Patrol right now on an armed - chasing an armed group and shots have been fired.
Soon, word comes through from the Border Patrol that the militia has visitors.
CHRIS SIMCOX: We got a group running around in here. How come he cut out? Does he copy you? Try it.
CARMEN: CP, can you copy me? Give us another location.
CHRIS SIMCOX: Yeah, I've got 'em right here.
CARMEN: They're running.
CHRIS SIMCOX: Back off, Carmen, back off.
Chris thinks the people we spotted weren't immigrants, but the advance scouts, known as coyotes, who are paid to guide them. He decides to call off the chase.
CHRIS SIMCOX: They've already made the ridge on the other side of the trailer. I say we call it. These must be some bad dudes man, they don't want to give up. I don't like this. Next fence we stop.
But according to Chris Simcox, his group is more fearful of the Mexicans than they are of the vigilantes.
CHRIS SIMCOX: Not one person's ever been harmed. We've been threatened many times. We've had some groups on the ground who, you know, swore, well, told us point blank that if we didn't have guns, that they would kill us and that they want to get into America no matter what.
As the light begins to fade, the hunt starts in earnest.
VOICE ON RADIO: Down into the trees and they're headed your way, so could you update your position?
CHRIS SIMCOX: I'm radio three. They're right there.
CARMEN: Right here, if you guys are all right by the cattle guard, just come across.
A group of 25 Mexicans, including children, is found waiting patiently for their guides. No-one attempts to resist or even run.
CHRIS SIMCOX: American citizens? ID? United States citizens? No?
Chris tells the group that the immigration authorities are coming to collect them. There's nothing to do now, but wait.
In response to the vigilantes' citizen's arrest of the Mexicans, a Black Hawk helicopter is called in to assist. The Black Hawk circles the group, guiding the way as US Border Patrol agents drive to the location.
CHRIS SIMCOX: We arranged to bring this Black Hawk helicopter in here, huh? I'm telling you why.
Soon, the authorities arrive to take over from the militia.
MAN, (Translation): You all stop now. Stand in line. I told you to stand in line! Hands up. Follow us. Follow us.
The Mexicans will be taken to an immigration service processing centre, fingerprinted and photographed and, provided they're not wanted by the police, will be driven back over the border and dropped off in Mexico. But the night is still early.
Just minutes after Border Patrol leaves, Chris Simcox and his militia uncover another group of people hidden in the wilderness.
CARMEN: Here, we've got more. No, we've got plenty here.
CHRIS SIMCOX: I'm coming. Somebody stay here. Somebody stay here. Somebody stay here.
This is an even larger group and Chris is worried that he and his militia will be in trouble if they decide to run.
CHRIS SIMCOX: Back off! I am backing off. Stay back. I got four more that ran back in here.
CARMEN: We got another group, we need Border Patrol.
CHRIS SIMCOX: You're an American citizen? No? We got some more on the run. Oh, boy! Slippery little guys. Here we go, come on, man. You don't want to stay out here all by yourself, do ya? You've got to be with your friends.
As the migrants are rounded up, it's apparent that this group contains a number of young children.
CHRIS SIMCOX: Three, four, five, six, seven kids.
REPORTER: Is this more children than you usually see?
CHRIS SIMCOX: Yes, this is a lot more children than we usually see. Usually make maybe two in a group, one, two.
This is incredible. I got 21. Somebody else count. Don't come here to take our jobs. You're all going to come in legally. Legal no problemo. Legal. Don't sneak into our country any more.
Since October last year, Chris's militia has rounded up over 1,300 undocumented migrants and handed them over to the authorities.
CHRIS SIMCOX: This is very typical, every night, night after night after night. They think it's a game and it is a game. It's a game because the United States doesn't or is not firm enough and again we need this message to Vicente Fox and to the people of Mexico that we mean business. But they don't - they think border patrol's a joke.
VIGILANTE, (Translation): We won't harm you in any way. But until the border patrol arrives you'll have to remain seated on the ground.
MIGRANT: We need to go to Mexico?
CHRIS SIMCOX: No, can't do that.
MIGRANT: Why? One chance, please.
With such massive numbers of people flooding across the border every day, the authorities have been overwhelmed and citizens' militia groups like this one have taken on the job of protecting America's borders.
JENNIFER ALLEN, BORDER ACTION NETWORK: It's not the role of civilians by any means to be, essentially kidnapping people. They're holding people against their will with the threat of violence, and in some cases direct violence - I mean, it's kidnapping.
Jennifer Allen is a human rights activist who first raised the alarm about vigilante action on the US border in Arizona.
JENNIFER ALLEN: The fact that they continue to do their unlawful detentions and harassments and chase people down with dogs, contributes to an anti - a larger anti-immigrant environment in the state. It says that it's OK to hunt Mexicans, it's OK to hunt immigrants and it's OK to target people based upon their immigration status whatever it may be.
The US Border Patrol refused to give Dateline a formal interview, but according to human rights activists, the authorities are not only turning a blind eye to the vigilantes' activities, they're encouraging them.
JENNIFER ALLEN: The Border Patrol has not condemned these groups at all and, in fact, is very complicit. One of the legal arguments that groups have been pushing, particularly the American Civil Liberties Union, is the fact that the Border Patrol continued to show up and respond to the vigilantes, means that they've sort of de facto deputised them.
In the Arizona wild west town of Tombstone, vigilantes are part of local history. It's from here that Chris Simcox's border militia group has drawn most of its volunteers. This is the town that witnessed the reign of Wyatt Earp and Doc Halliday, the vigilante heroes who cleared Tombstone of its outlaws, starting with their legendary shoot-out at the O.K. Corral.
TOMBSTONE THEATRE, GOOD GUY: I happen to be a good guy and I've got a gun. Good guy!
BAD GUY: Come on, you cowards, this is a gunfight, not a ballet! You can make more noise than that, I'm the bad guy!
Now the only glimpse into Tombstone's bloody past is a vaudeville-style show put on for the tourists.
GOOD GUY: You ready for a gunfight? Did you bring your guns? Well, how are you going to shoot back?
When Chris Simcox moved here from California early last year, his first job was in this very show. But Simcox had higher ambitions, and calling on his retirement savings, he bought the town's ailing newspaper - 'The Tombstone Tumbleweed'.
CHRIS SIMCOX: Good paper last week, I'm happy.
Simcox says local citizens were fed up with the constant flow of migrants across the border. Late last year, he used his paper for a dramatic call to arms.
CHRIS SIMCOX: For 10 years people in Cochise county have been going to Washington, begging for help with this problem. They've continued to ignore it. Enough is enough. The citizens chose to do the job themselves, to take a stand, to get up out of our lazy boys, turn off the television, and actually force the government to address the problem by going out and doing it ourselves and challenging them to do the right thing.
Chris Simcox wants to show me one of the reasons why residents here are so angry about illegal immigration.
CHRIS SIMCOX: Oh, airline tickets, bus tickets - they come from all over the world.
This dried-up riverbed is used as a meeting point by the migrants. We find piles of discarded water bottles, clothes and backpacks.
CHRIS SIMCOX: You want me to take you down here to show you the human faeces? I didn't show you that. I could show you El Banio. You know, human faeces, you saw the trash. This is a horrible biohazard situation. And now we have people dying in our county, 28 people, since the first of the year, have died in our county. That's unacceptable. That's a biohazard. We don't need people dying in our backyards.
Last year, nearly 150 people died in the desert near here. For human rights activists, like this group gathered near Tucson, this isn't a public health issue, but rather a humanitarian crisis. Kat Rodriguez is an American, who's proud of her Hispanic ancestry. Like many in America's south-west, she's descended from people who lived in this area long before white Americans. She says many of those driving vigilante-style action on the border, like Chris Simcox, have moved into the area to promote racism.
KAT RODRIGUEZ, DERECHOS HUMANOS COATITION: They've come to this area, and they're racist. That's like, you know, moving to Africa and saying, "What's up with all the black people?" I mean, you've come to an area that is bordered with Mexico and there is a huge, you know - our group was divided - it's the same people, it's the same blood, it's the same culture. They come in and then they're annoyed that Mexico's so close, you know.
Rodriguez works for a human rights group which has been investigating allegations of vigilante violence against undocumented migrants. Few are reported, and those that are remain unsolved.
One of the most disturbing incidents occurred last year when a group of 12 migrants, who'd just crossed the border, were sheltering at stockyards north of Tucson.
KAT RODRIGUEZ: A truck pulled up and two individuals got out in camouflage gear and just opened fire on people. Everyone went scattering and running. One man got away and actually made it to a nearby ranch and was telling the rancher, "The soldiers are going to kill me, the soldiers are going to kill me." And the man was like, you know, this is the United States, we don't have that here, you know. He called the police. The next morning they went out there. They found two migrants dead and, from the tracks, the other nine were rounded up into a vehicle and nobody knows what happened to them to this day. Nobody knows.
But the majority of people dying on America's southern frontier are dying from natural causes. When the summer temperatures start pushing up the mercury, the death rate soars. This year, up to 300 people are expected to perish in the harsh conditions. Although the US Border Patrol wouldn't agree to a formal interview about vigilante activists in Arizona, it did allow Dateline to film two of its search and rescue officers at work - Julie and David attending to a Mexican man they spotted sitting in the bushes.
JULIE; When they come out and sit on the side of the road, they've given up. He's hurt, he hurt his knee, his group left him, last night, I think. Was it last night he said? Fortunately for him they left him close to a road, I guess, so he was able to find the road. But a lot of times, you know, the weak get left behind and they end up dying out there.
The man is starving, and these agents demonstrate nothing but courtesy and compassion. But other Border Patrol officers have been accused of violating human rights.
JENNIFER ALLEN: This summer we've had two Border Patrol agents shoot and kill migrants who did absolutely nothing. In one case in June, there was a man who was actually running back across the border and he was shot six times by a Border Patrol agent. In another case, there was a man outside Nogales who was picked up by Border Patrol agents, severely beaten, deported and then a week later he died from his injuries.
This is the border that's proven so difficult to defend, and it's easy to see why. There's a simple barbed-wire fence and a broken sign warning would-be immigrants of the harsh desert conditions. Just a few metres away, a cattle grid makes crossing the border a breeze.
Julie and David say Border Patrol agents face an impossible task and they're sympathetic towards locals who take the law into their own hands.
DAVID: You look at it - if they're protecting their own property, I mean that's their right as American citizens to do that, so...
REPORTER: So it's a bit of a catch 22, you think?
DAVID: Yeah, I think so. I mean, they do have the right to do it and, you know, they have the right to protect their property.
LADY: Base to HT1, had a hit on sensor six. Reported 13 SVIs.
GLENN SPENCER: I'll Roger that, they're en route now.
LADY: 10/4, base clear.
GLENN SPENCER: OK, let's get going, guys. We're on our way. We're 45 minutes into the mission.
Another group of concerned citizens commences its hunt. Glenn Spencer, a prominent anti-immigration activist, has set up a non-profit organisation, called American Patrol. It's a kind of a high-tech militia with an array of sensors along the border in order to detect intruders.
GLENN SPENCER: We estimate probably 200 to 300 will come in here, through here any one night, maybe more, along this river. We just got a hit on one of your sensors down here.
Unlike Chris Simcox, Spencer doesn't detain the immigrants. He uses video cameras to film them and a portable satellite transmission tower to beam the images to his Internet website, before calling in the Border Patrol. At a private airport just a mile from the border, Spencer tests out his latest weapon to stem the flow of illegal immigrants - a pilotless aircraft flying up and down the US international boundary sending back live video as it goes. Soon he plans to have dozens of these spies in the sky to stop what he calls the reconquest of southwest America.
GLENN SPENCER: And so when people say they're only coming up here to get jobs, they're wrong. In fact, a lot of them believe, and are motivated by, the idea of coming and retaking this land in the name of Mexico. And I believe that 95% of the people who cross that border believe that.
VIDEOTAPE: America is being transformed almost overnight. A combination of legal and illegal immigration coupled with citizen children, or anchor babies, born to illegal aliens, is allowing Mexico to colonise the American southwest.
Spencer's conspiracy theory revolves around the Mexican takeover of ancient Aztec lands known as Aztlan. He's produced this video to publicise the danger.
VIDEOTAPE: And this colonisation is being done with the tacit approval of the American Government.
GLENN SPENCER: As I got into this over the years, I began to learn that there was a much more sinister dimension to this movement, that it is one of la Re Conquista - the taking back of land which they feel was stolen from them. It was not.
Like Chris Simcox, Glenn Spencer has moved here from California. Here, in Arizona's volatile border zone, his services are in high demand.
LES STAFFORD: The only thing I could tell you, Glenn, is you just have to pick up where they congregate here and just follow their trail.
GLENN SPENCER: Well, now is a good time because...
Glenn Spencer and his team have been called in to assist a landowner, Les Stafford, who's backyard has become a major transit point for illegal immigrants.
MAN: Are they coming over this saddle right here out? Are they coming right straight down Ramsey off the crest trail? We don't know. Once we find that information out, then we'll have a better chance of getting sensors out here to prepare YOU for them being here. You'll know they're coming before they get here.
LES STAFFORD: They walk over the mountains and there's a staging area there. They have a coyote with them who has a cell phone, I assume, and he calls whoever's gonna come and pick them up and the cars roll in, the vans roll in, they've run out of the trees. I've seen 30, 40 of them at a time come running out of the trees and get in vans and leave.
Although the immigrants haven't come into Les's house, he warns that there'll be trouble if they do.
LES STAFFORD: I've got an alarm on the house here and I carry a gun so, if they come, we're not leaving. They'll carry them out in a profile.
As Glenn and his boys inspect the property, it's clear this is a major staging area for illegal border crossers.
GLENN SPENCER: This is repeated hundreds if not thousands of times across this area.
The team makes plans to blanket the area with sensors, giving Les plenty of warning the next time a group comes through. As far as Les is concerned, Glenn Spencer is a true patriot.
LES STAFFORD: I think the man has got his country at heart and he's trying to do something to stop the illegals. He's trying to make the American public aware of what's going on in this country.
GLENN SPENCER: Is that a bottle of medicine there? Let me see.
But human rights activists think Glenn Spencer's motives are more sinister, comparing him to a well-known leader of the Ku Klux Klan.
JENNIFER ALLEN:..look at Spencer as sort of the high-tech version of David Duke. Whereas others put on white sheets, Glenn Spencer pulls out his cameras and his live satellite uplinks. The medium may be different but the message and the impact is still the same.
But Spencer says he's no racist.
GLENN SPENCER: Hell, I spent 10 years working with American Indians, fighting for their rights. My chief technician that I hired had to buy him a new Bronco to come work for us. This was a Mexican! And he had a white girlfriend to boot and I had to bring her aboard too, and he also had a Mexican wife and all of that stuff that any racist would not put up with, you know.
JENNIFER ALLEN: Just because Glenn Spencer may have a Jewish friend or a Native American friend does not excuse his actions, nor his words, which are very much geared towards hunting down immigrants, be them Mexicans, Central American, South American or Asian. The effect is still the same - that all people of colour are being targeted.
GLENN SPENCER: They even call it themselves La Re Conquista. They are taking back what they feel was lost as the result of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. And you...
Several published reports, including one from America's Anti Defamation League, claim to have found real links between Glenn Spencer and white supremacist organisations.
GLENN SPENCER: It's all created, fabricated. There isn't an ounce of truth in it, but it's revealing, it's revealing, when you look at someone with my background who is attacked in this way. It says more about the people who are attacking me than it does about me.
But the Anti Defamation League asserts Spencer's organisation has received financial and moral support from known hate groups who accept his Aztlan conspiracy.
KAT RODRIGUEZ: This rhetoric that he feeds out nationwide to groups that don't know us on the east coast from the hate mail that we get, they believe it. They truly believe that we are agents sent here to claim this land for Aztlan, which makes no sense.
CHRIS SIMCOX: Tell 'em we'll give 'em guns - revolution.
Chris Simcox has returned to the border for another nightly roundup.
CHRIS SIMCOX: Don't come any more. We've got citizens, American citizens, we say 'no'. No more. You go back, you fight Vicente Fox. Bang, bang, revolution. No jobs, no jobs? Revolution make jobs.
He's just detained a large group and tells them that the only answer to their problems is to overthrow the democratically elected government of President Vicente Fox.
CHRIS SIMCOX: Working? Fight your government. Get some guns, revolution. Vicente Fox - he's a crook! He put you guys out of work. NAFTA sucks.
They've all got nice clothes, brand new tennis shoes, brand new hats, they look like they came right off the street of any major city here in this country. These are not poor migrant workers. These are people who are coming here to take advantage of America.
Tonight's group were discovered after being tracked for more than two hours.
HENRY, (Translation): If I go to Mexico with no papers, they'll put me in jail.
WOMAN, (Translation): We'd let you into Mexico. Of course.
HENRY, (Translation): You and your friends risk ending up in jail.
Tired from the hunt, members of the militia, like Henry, who, in fact, has Mexican ancestry, express their anger.
HENRY: They're really surprised, they're really surprised that I'm doing this and they ask me "Why are you doing this?" and I said, "Because you guys are breaking our laws. If I went to Mexico with no documents I'd be arrested. So you're breaking the laws of this nation and I'm policing it and I told them, like I told the media, I'm an American first and I'm an Hispanic second.
VIGILANTE MAN: Because our major cities are being overrun now and turned into areas that look and act just like Mexico.
REPORTER: Do you feel though for the women and children...
VIGILANTE MAN: Of course. ..to see them terrified? Of course. Well, I don't see that they were so terrified, they're laughing and giggling and eating cookies.
HENRY: I feel bad for them but then I don't because don't live off our system. Too many men and women have died in this country and have died for this flag to be trampled on, disrespected by people who invade this country the way they do.
But for this group, the patriotic fervour of these self-appointed vigilantes means very little. Desperately poor, these people say they're forced to make the arduous journey north to find work to support their families.
MEXICAN, (Translation): We know the risk involved, but we're prepared to take it. That's all we want. We just want work. We don't come here to cause any trouble.
But Chris Simcox has no time for sob stories. He wants to see the introduction of much harsher penalties for border crossers, including detention.
CHRIS SIMCOX: I would detain them and I would put them in a work camp and I'd have them out here cleaning up and then they'd get sent back after that. Put a couple of bucks in their pocket and tell them "Don't come back." There must be a punishment, there needs to be a deterrent otherwise it's just a game.
On that point, even the Mexicans acknowledge this is a game of hide and seek they'll continue to play.
MEXICAN, (Translation): Tomorrow they'll send me home but I'll come straight back. I'll keep coming back until I get across. I've got to beat the surveillance. I'll manage to get across one day. I'll outwit the guards some day, even if it takes half a year.
Ultimately, despite the civilian patrols, the high-tech surveillance and the life-threatening desert conditions, poor migrants will continue to risk it all for a chance at prosperity.
REPORTER: NICK LAZAREDES EDITOR: KERRIE-ANN WALLACH
(Ref: 1929)