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April 13, 2005
Around 200 self-styled Minutemen (President Bush calls them vigilantes) have gathered on Arizona's border with Mexico to protect America from illegal immigrants. Of the million or more migrants believed to enter America illegally each year, half cross the Arizona desert. The Border Patrol complains that the Minutemen, many of them carrying guns, are accidentally setting off alarm beacons and risk harming both themselves and their prey. The mayor of the nearby town of Douglas, which is mostly Latino, calls the project racist. Nonetheless, the Minutemen claim credit for the arrival of an extra 500 Border Patrol agents, an unusual effort by Mexico's armed forces to deter border crossings and an abrupt fall in the number of illegal immigrants. That fall is likely to be temporary: aspiring border-crossers in Mexico have told journalists that they will either wait until the Minutemen leave, or choose another part of the border.
The Economist, April 9, 2005
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