'Vigilantes' set for Mexico border patrol

BBC

From 1 April, groups of volunteers from across the US will spend up to a month camped out in the inhospitable Arizona desert.

But this is no ordinary hunting or camping trip.
Armed with night vision goggles, radios and light aircraft, their quarry are the hundreds of immigrants who each night seek illegally to cross the wire fence separating the US from Mexico.

While the volunteers insist they will simply "observe" the new arrivals' movements and alert the US Border Patrol, human rights groups fear the eruption of vigilante violence.
Called the Minuteman Project, the operation has already strained international relations between Washington and its southern neighbour.

Washington accuses Mexico of not doing enough to stem the flow of illegal immigrants from across Latin America into the US, while Mexican officials condemn vigilante attacks near the border.