Borderland security: vigilantes are far from the fringe in Arizona. Instead, organizers say, ranchers and border agents mirror a violent border society where racial profiling abounds and prosecution of abuse is rare.(action)

Thirteen-year-old Rosita Gonzales * heard strange noises while she and her brothers were playing in a tent they had set up in the backyard. She grabbed her backpack and ran toward the house. Behind her home in Pirtleville, AZ, a tiny desert town on the U.S.-Mexico border, the Border Patrol agents who were prowling in the brush assumed the girl to be a fleeing undocumented migrant and opened fire, shattering her kneecap. Although she survived the shooting, the incident became one of many incidents that have created and maintained an atmosphere of violence and harassment throughout towns near the southern Arizona border.

This past year, community organizers with ...