Participants in the vigil came from Arizona, Texas, and several cities in California, as well as Nogales, Mexico. Many stayed the next day to participate in a strategy planning meeting.

Demilitarization of the U.S.-Mexican border and the right of workers to freely cross borders were demands raised by speakers at both the vigil and the strategy session. A call for two further actions was issued by participants in the meetings: a march and rally, tentatively called for the border at Nogales, Mexico, on July 4, and an immigration rights summit to be held at a yet unspecified border town around December 10.

As a consequence of U.S. government policy, the Border Patrol has sought to block off migration routes in populated areas. Many border crossings are now in more rural areas, such as Cochise County on the southeastern border of Arizona. This has become the central crossing point on the U.S.-Mexico border. According to local residents, thousands of people attempt the crossing in the Douglas area every night. At nearby Naco, the Border Patrol arrests and deports some 900 people every day.

Two years ago many Douglas-area ranchers began organizing vigilante actions, rounding up immigrants and holding them at gunpoint while waiting for the Border Patrol to arrive. Roger Barnett, owner of the 22,000 acre Cross Rail Ranch east of Douglas, has become a nationally televised symbol of their violent opposition to immigration.

Barnett and 20 other local ranchers signed a proclamation in March 1999 warning that "if the government refuses to provide this security, then the only recourse is to provide it ourselves." Ron Sanders, retired chief of the Tucson sector of the Border Patrol, accompanied ultrarightist Patrick Buchanan this past January to the border at Douglas, hosted by a local right-wing group, the Cochise County Concerned Citizens.

In April and May an unsigned brochure was circulated in the area and in California inviting volunteers to "Have Fun in the Sun," patrolling for trespassers as a volunteer for a Cochise County Neighborhood Watch program.

The brochure, and a May 3 televised segment of Roger Barnett and his brother, both armed, detaining nine undocumented persons for the Border Patrol while in the company of an ABC camera crew, drew a strong protest from the Mexican government. Jose Angel Pescador Asuna, head of Mexico's immigration agency, flew to the border May 5 to criticize vigilantism. Mexican newspapers called the pamphlet an invitation to "cacería," or hunting, of their countrymen.

Support for the ranchers against Mexico's accusations came immediately from both the Border Patrol and right-wing organizations. David Aguilar, chief of the Border Patrol's Tucson sector, denied the existence of vigilantes in Cochise County. Several California-based anti-immigrant groups came to a conference at nearby Sierra Vista to support the local movement.

Buchanan, speaking in Scottsdale to the Arizona convention of the Reform Party, called for increased enforcement in all high-traffic areas of the border. He said that if elected, he would use federal troops if necessary to stop the immigration.  
 
 
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