International Human Rights Commission Considers Claims Against U.S.-Mexico Border Vigilante Violence
Thursday, 06 March 2008
Petition charges U.S. government with human rights violations for failure to prosecute border vigilantism

What: Inter-American Commission of the Organization of American States (OAS) holds an admissibility hearing on a petition submitted by the Border Action Network for human rights violations caused by the United States’ lack of protection and legal remedies for immigrant victims of intimidation and violence by civilian vigilante groups along the US/Mexico border in southern Arizona. The petition also seeks redress for the government’s failure to act against more widespread harms created by anti-immigrant groups and individuals that affect the broader Latino population including U.S. citizens, who suffer from a climate of fear, racism and intimidation.


Contact: Jennifer Allen (520) 820-0360 in Washington, DC or Katie O’Connor (520) 623-4944 in Arizona

When: Friday, March 7, 2008 at 9:00-10:00 am EST

Where: Organization of American States, 17th Street & Constitution Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C. in Room A. The hearing can also be viewed live via webcast at www.oas.org

Who: Border Action Network, a human rights community organization based on the Arizona-Mexico border filed the petition. They are represented by attorneys Seánna Howard and Robert Hershey of the University of Arizona, Indigenous Peoples Law & Policy Program.

Why: Over the past several years, there has been an alarming and unprecedented increase in the frequency of violent and criminal acts committed by civilians against immigrants in southern Arizona and U.S. government officials have failed to take any action to prevent it. Anti-immigrant vigilante groups, like the Minuteman Project, operate by patrolling the border for immigrants and detaining them for the US Border Patrol. Groups such as these, along with private individuals, have been involved in detentions, beatings, shootings, threats and other abuses against immigrants. These quasi-paramilitary forces, often travel on all-terrain-vehicles, carrying firearms, dressed in camouflage fatigues, and have official sounding names, like “American Border Patrolâ€