How the Scope of States' Citizen's Arrest Statutes Affects the Activity Level of Vigilante Groups on the U.S.-Mexico Border
![handle is hein.journals/jgrj11 and id is 315 raw text is: How the Scope of States' Citizen's Arrest
Statutes Affects the Activity Level of Vigilante
Groups on the U.S.-Mexico Border
Karen S. Kopitsky*
I. INTRODUCTION
Vigilante movements are frequently characterized as a group of persons
who defend their viewpoints, often through the use of force, against those
who oppose their views.' These views generally relate to the defence [sic]
of power, property and other 'bourgeois' interests.2 The vigilante
movement in the United States is not a new phenomenon;3 it has been a part
of the landscape of the United States since before its separation from Great
Britain.4 In recent years, there has been a renewed focus on these citizen
groups.5 Part of this escalating interest is due to increasing numbers of
undocumented workers immigrating to the United States, as well as the lack
of response from Congress on U.S. immigration policy.6 One response has
come from individual citizens taking action on the border.7 Historically,
* J.D. Candidate, The University of Iowa College of Law, May 2008. M.A., Pittsburgh State
University, Teaching, 2003. B.A., Rhodes College, Spanish and Latin American Studies, 2001.
Thank you to Dean Linda McGuire for assisting me in the development of my Note topic.
Additionally, thank you to my friends and family without whom law school would have been a
much more difficult experience. Finally, thank you to the Journal of Gender, Race & Justice
editorial board for their support and excellence in editing.
1. RAY ABRAHAMS, VIGILANT CITIZENS: VIGILANTISM AND THE STATE 1 (1998).
2. Id.
3. BRUNO LEONE ET AL., THE MILITIA MOVEMENT 7 (1997).
4. Id.
5. See JUSTIN AKERS CHACON & MIKE DAVIS, No ONE IS ILLEGAL: FIGHTING RACISM AND
STATE VIOLENCE ON THE U.S.-MEXICO BORDER 84-85 (2006) (The roots of this neo-vigilantism
go back to 1996 and California's polarizing debate about Proposition 187, which proposed to deny
public education and health services to undocumented people.).
6. See Esther Pan, Council on Foreign Relations: A Nonpartisan Resource For Information
and Analysis, The US Immigration Debate (2006), http://www.cfr.org/publication/10210/us_
immigration-debate.html#2 (describing various legislation that has been proposed).
7. See Susan Carroll, Civilians Patrol Border, TUCSON CITIZEN, Oct. 28, 2002, at IA,
available at http://www.hispanicvista.com/html2/110302ci.htm (quoting from the Ranch Rescue](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/jgrj11&div=18&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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How the Scope of States' Citizen's Arrest Statutes Affects the Activity Level of Vigilante Groups on the U.S.-Mexico Border
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