Thread: Border Watcher Finds Himself Under Scrutiny

http://link.toolbot.com/nytimes.com/24415

A Border Watcher Finds Himself Under Scrutiny
Joe Raedle/Newsmakers

Illegal immigrants are “invading the place,” said Roger Barnett, left, on his ranch with his brother Brent.

Published: November 24, 2006

For years, Roger Barnett has holstered a pistol to his hip, tucked an assault rifle in his truck and set out over the scrub brush on his thousands of acres of ranchland near the Mexican border in southeastern Arizona to hunt.
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The New York Times

Hunt illegal immigrants, that is, often chronicled in the news.

“They’re flooding across, invading the place,” Mr. Barnett told the ABC program “Nightline” this spring. “They’re going to bring their families, their wives, and they’re going to bring their kids. We don’t need them.”

But now, after boasting of having captured 12,000 illegal crossers on land he owns or leases from the state and emerging as one of the earliest and most prominent of the self-appointed border watchers, Mr. Barnett finds himself the prey.

Immigrant rights groups have filed lawsuits, accusing him of harassing and unlawfully imprisoning people he has confronted on his ranch near Douglas. One suit pending in federal court accuses him, his wife and his brother of pointing guns at 16 illegal immigrants they intercepted, threatening them with dogs and kicking one woman in the group.

Another suit, accusing Mr. Barnett of threatening two Mexican-American hunters and three young children with an assault rifle and insulting them with racial epithets, ended Wednesday night in Bisbee with a jury awarding the hunters $98,750 in damages.

The court actions are the latest example of attempts by immigrant rights groups to curb armed border-monitoring groups by going after their money, if not their guns. They have won civil judgments in Texas, and this year two illegal Salvadoran immigrants who had been held against their will took possession of a 70-acre ranch in southern Arizona after winning a case last year.

The Salvadorans had accused the property owner, Casey Nethercott, a former leader of the Ranch Rescue group, of menacing them with a gun in 2003. Mr. Nethercott was convicted of illegal gun possession; the Salvadorans plan to sell the property, their lawyer has said.

But Mr. Barnett, known for dressing in military garb and caps with insignia resembling the United States Border Patrol’s, represents a special prize to the immigrant rights groups. He is ubiquitous on Web sites, mailings and brochures put out by groups monitoring the Mexican border and, with family members, was an inspiration for efforts like the Minutemen civilian border patrols.

“The Barnetts, probably more than any people in this country, are responsible for the vigilante movement as it now exists,” said Mark Potok, legal director of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks the groups. “They were the recipients of so much press coverage and they kept boasting, and it was out of those boasts that the modern vigilante movement sprang up.”

Jesus Romo Vejar, the lawyer for the hunting party, said their court victory Wednesday would serve notice that mistreating immigrants would not pass unpunished. Although the hunters were not in the United States illegally, they contended that Mr. Barnett’s treatment of them reflected his attitude and practices toward Latinos crossing his land, no matter what their legal status.

“We have really, truly breached their defense,” Mr. Vejar said, “and this opens up the Barnetts to other attorneys to come in and sue him whenever he does some wrong with people.”

Mr. Vejar said he would ask the state attorney general and the county attorney, who had cited a lack of evidence in declining to prosecute Mr. Barnett, to take another look at the case. He also said he would ask the state to revoke Mr. Barnett’s leases on its land.

Mr. Barnett had denied threatening anyone. He left the courtroom after the verdict without commenting, and his lawyer, John Kelliher, would not comment either.

In a brief interview during a court break last week, Mr. Barnett denied harming anyone and said that the legal action would not deter his efforts. He said that the number of illegal immigrants crossing his land had declined recently but that he thought it was only a temporary trend.

“For your children, for our future, that’s why we need to stop them,” Mr. Barnett said. “If we don’t step in for your children, I don’t know who is expected to step in.”

Mr. Barnett prevailed in a suit in the summer when a jury ruled against a fellow rancher who had sued, accusing him of trespassing on his property as he pursued immigrants. Another suit last year was dropped when the plaintiff, who had returned to Mexico, decided not to return to press the case.

till, the threat of liability has discouraged ranchers from allowing the more militant civilian patrol groups on their land, and accusations of abuse seem to be on the wane, said Jennifer Allen of the Border Action Network, an immigrant rights group.
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Michael Mally for The New York Times

Ronald Morales, right, his daughter Angelique Venese and others won a civil suit against Roger Barnett. They said he detained them illegally then pointed a rifle at them after running them off.
Jeffry Scott/Arizona Daily Star

Roger Barnett owns or leases 22,000 acres near the border.

But David H. Urias, a lawyer with the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund who is representing the 16 immigrants suing Mr. Barnett, said fewer complaints did not necessarily mean less activity. Immigrants from Mexico are returned to their country often within hours and often under the impression that their deportation — and chance to try to return again — will go quicker without their complaints.

“It took us months to find these 16 people,” Mr. Urias said.

People who tend ranches on the border said that even if they did not agree with Mr. Barnett’s tactics they sympathized with his rationale, and that putting him out of business would not resolve the problems they believe the crossers cause.

“The illegals think they have carte blanche on his ranch,” said Al Garza, the executive director of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps in Arizona, a civilian patrol group that, Mr. Garza says, does not detain illegal immigrants but calls in their movements to the Border Patrol. “The man has had it.”

Mr. Barnett, a retired Cochise County sheriff’s deputy and the owner of a towing business, acquired his ranch in the mid-1990s, buying or leasing from the state more than 22,000 acres.

Almost from the start he took up a campaign against the people crossing the border from Mexico, sometimes detaining large groups and radioing for the Border Patrol to pick them up.

Chuy Rodriguez, a spokesman for the agency’s Tucson office, said the Border Patrol maintained no formal relationship with Mr. Barnett or other civilian groups. Agency commanders, concerned about potential altercations, have warned the groups not to take the law into their hands.

“If they see something, we ask them to call us, like we would ask of any citizen,” Mr. Rodriguez said.

Mr. Barnett’s lawyers have suggested he has acted out of a right to protect his property.

“A lease holder doesn’t have the right to protect his cattle?” Mr. Kelliher asked one of the men in the hunting party, Arturo Morales, at the trial.

“I guess so, maybe,” Mr. Morales replied.

Mr. Barnett has had several encounters with local law enforcement officials over detaining illegal immigrants, some of whom complained that he pointed guns at them. The local authorities have declined to prosecute him, citing a lack of evidence or ambiguity about whether he had violated any laws.

A few years ago, however, the Border Action Network and its allied groups began collecting testimony from illegal immigrants and others who had had confrontations with Mr. Barnett.

They included the hunters, who sued Mr. Barnett for unlawful detention, emotional distress and other claims, and sought at least $200,000. Ronald Morales; his father, Arturo; Ronald Morales’s two daughters, ages 9 and 11; and an 11-year-old friend said Mr. Barnett, his brother Donald and his wife, Barbara, confronted them Oct. 30, 2004.

Ronald Morales testified that Mr. Barnett used expletives and ethnically derogatory remarks as he sought to kick them off state-owned property he leases. Then, Mr. Morales said, Mr. Barnett pulled an AR-15 assault rifle from his truck and pointed it at them as they drove off, traumatizing the girls.

Mr. Kelliher conceded that there was a heated confrontation. But he denied that Mr. Barnett used slurs and said Ronald Morales was as much an instigator. He said Morales family members had previously trespassed on Mr. Barnett’s land and knew that Mr. Barnett required written permission to hunt there.

Even as the trial proceeded, the Border Patrol reported a 45 percent drop in arrests in the Douglas area in the last year. The agency credits scores of new agents, the National Guard deployment there this summer and improved technology in detecting crossers.

But Ms. Allen of the Border Action Network and other immigrant rights supporters suspect that people are simply crossing elsewhere.

the threat of liability has discouraged ranchers from allowing the more militant civilian patrol groups on their land, and accusations of abuse seem to be on the wane, said Jennifer Allen of the Border Action Network, an immigrant rights group.

What exactly is an IMMIGRANT RIGHTS GROUP? Sounds like aiding and abetting criminal trespass by illegal aliens---why is there no one suing this group in Federal Court for violating (see below)

Let me get this straight, an illegal alien can break laws entering this country without permission, break laws again by entering someones land without permission and then said landowner gets prosecuted for protecting what is rightfully his??? What a country....land of the FREE..............

The press is having a field day with this story, as it should.

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20061 ... -3897r.htm

Civil jury fines rancher in illegal-alien dispute
By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 25, 2006


An Arizona rancher who has waged a five-year campaign to stop a flood of illegal aliens from crossing his property has been ordered by a civil jury to pay nearly $100,000 for a 2004 incident during which he confronted a family hunting on his land.
Roger Barnett, 62, who began rounding up illegal aliens after he said they destroyed his property, killed calves and broke into his home, was ordered to pay Ronald Morales, his father, his two young daughters and their friend on claims of negligence, false imprisonment and emotional distress.
The jury found in favor of all five plaintiffs, but split responsibility between Mr. Barnett, Mr. Morales and his father, Arturo Morales.
The Morales family had sought $210,000 damages in a lawsuit sponsored by two civil rights groups, the Border Action Network and the Southern Poverty Law Center, which accused Mr. Barnett of vigilantism and abusing the illegal aliens he detained. The jury settled on a damage award of $98,000.
"This is an historic moment," said Jennifer Allen, director of the Border Action Network. "This victory is just the beginning. We can guarantee that every official who tried to sweep this case and issue under the rug and who still has the capacity of bringing criminal charges will hear from us."
Two other lawsuits brought against Mr. Barnett with the assistance of the Border Action Network were dismissed. A lawsuit filed by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund is pending, naming Mr. Barnett, his wife and brother, and Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever, in a conspiracy to violate the rights of illegal aliens.
During the Morales trial, Mr. Barnett denied threatening the party, testifying that he only took out his AR-15 rifle because the adults in the group were carrying rifles. He also denied accusations by Ronald Morales that he had insulted them with racial slurs and threatened to shoot them.
Mr. Barnett's brother, Donald, said in a statement: "In the Morales family, the father taught the son to trespass, and now the father's teaching the daughters how to trespass in blatant disregard for the law. I guess in this country, private property and a person's rights don't mean much any more."
Donald Barnett had been named in the lawsuit, but later was dropped as a defendant.
Mr. Barnett's Cross Rail Ranch near Douglas, Ariz., has become a major route for northbound illegal aliens. The ranch sits in what Cochise County law enforcement authorities have called "the avenue of choice" for illegal aliens.
"Thousands of aliens have crossed my property," Mr. Barnett told The Washington Times in a September 2002 interview at his ranch. "There are so many that I can tell you that at times it looks like a slow-motion invasion."
Mr. Barnett said some of his cattle have died from ingesting plastic bottles left behind by the aliens and that some of the ranch's trails were littered with trash nearly a foot deep.
A former Cochise County sheriff's deputy who later was successful in the towing and propane business, Mr. Barnett spent $30,000 on electronic sensors, hidden along established trails on his ranch. He searches the ranch for illegal aliens in a pickup truck, dressed in a green shirt and camouflage hat, with his handgun and rifle, high-powered binoculars and a walkie-talkie to communicate.
His actions have made him a target of alien and drug smugglers in Mexico. Law-enforcement authorities told him the smugglers had placed a bounty on his head.
"This is my land. I'm the victim here," Mr. Barnett said.

http://scoop.epluribusmedia.org/story/2 ... /15536/876

Border vigilante found guilty, must pay $98,000 settlement

by Duke1676
Fri Nov 24, 2006 at 03:05:36 PM EST

In a major blow to the border vigilante movement, a jury in the civil trial of Roger Barnett found him guilty Wednesday of intentionally inflicting emotional distress, negligence, unlawful imprisonment and assault. After three hours of deliberations in the Superior Court in Bisbee, Arizona, the jury in the civil trial ruled in favor of the plaintiffs awarding them $98,000.
The charges stem from an October 30, 2004 incident when Roger Barnett, his wife and brother, Donald Barnett stopped Arturo, Ronald, Vanese and Angelique Morales and the girls' friend, Emma English, while the group was on a hunting trip. Upon finding the group on land he leases for grazing livestock from the Arizona State Land Department, Barnett yelled racist obscenities and pointed his chambered, AR-15 assault rifle at the three young girls (ages 11 and 9) and the two men and threatened to kill them.


Commentary :: ::


The hunters, all of whom are Americans of Mexican decent, said Barnett insulted them with racial slurs and threatened to shoot them - charges Barnett denied. Ronald Morales said he tried to get the county attorney to press criminal charges against Barnett, but was told no jury would convict him.
Morales' attorney, Jesus Romo Vejar, said he hoped the local prosecutor would now reconsider filing criminal charges against Barnett, and he hoped others who had had problems with the rancher also would be encouraged to file civil claims.

"Everybody thought that it was impossible to win in Cochise County, and we proved to them that it's not true," he said.

Romo Vejar called the case "historic" in the county's legal history, and said it was significant a jury of seven whites and one Hispanic ruled against Barnett.

The Morales suit was sponsored by two civil rights groups, the Border Action Network and the Southern Poverty Law Center, who have accused Barnett of abusing the illegal immigrants he detains on his ranch.

Douglas Daily Dispatch


The trial began on November 14th and included emotional and intense testimony from the children, their parents, psychologists, land surveyors, sheriffs' deputy, Arizona Game and Fish employee, and other bow hunters who had also been physically assaulted and barraged with racist insults by Barnett. The families were represented by Jesus Romo Vejar, a long-time civil rights and immigrant rights attorney.


"We're really relieved to see that finally Roger Barnett has been held responsible for the actions he has taken and the violence he has inflicted - and not just against the members of the Douglas community," said Jennifer Allen, director of the Border Action Network. "This also makes a statement to migrants who have been abused that these sorts of actions are, in fact, illegal."
Barnett estimates he has detained and turned over to the Border Patrol between 10,000 and 12,000 illegal immigrants during the past decade.

Barnett declined to comment on the verdict, saying his attorney had advised him not to speak on the matter.

Douglas Daily Dispatch

"This is an historic moment," reflects Jennifer Allen, Director of the Border Action Network. "This victory is just the beginning. We can guarantee that every official who tried to sweep this case and issue under the rug and who still has the capacity of bringing criminal charges will hear from us."

"The door has been opened by this very important decision condemning the violence and trauma caused by border vigilantism," continues Allen. "We've already seen the courage the Morales and English girls as well as the jury had for standing up for what is right and fair. Now we are looking for the courage of our public officials to uphold human dignity and end vigilante impunity."

The long-term ramifications of the decision are yet to be assessed, but other border vigilante groups will certainly be affected by the jury's verdict. Vigilante groups have long assumed that they can operate with virtual impunity along the border. Additionally, groups like the Minutemen have expanded their operations further from traditional border areas recently and taken on up a new campaign to root out undocumented immigrants at their jobs and in their homes. This decision will certainly come into play as they continue to expand their reach into areas of enforcement well beyond the commonly accepted legal boundaries