Free Republic

BISBEE — A recent court decision that held the Border Patrol liable for occupying private property in California might be applied to lands in other places near the U.S.-Mexico border, including Cochise County. Otay Mesa Property LP, Rancho Vista Del Mar and Otay International LLC filed a lawsuit in March 2006 seeking compensation for the use of 750 acres of valuable development land in San Diego County. Without permission from landowners, the Border Patrol buried numerous sensors, and then entered the property when the sensors indicated movement of potential illegal immigrants. On Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims held...

Arizona rancher Roger Barnett initially faced the possibility of paying $32 million to compensate several illegal immigrants he stopped at gunpoint on his land. He walked away instead with a verdict that rejected any notion he violated the trespassers' civil rights and affirmed that U.S. citizens can still detain aliens crossing the border. What remains to be seen, though, is what impact the $77,800 in damages that a jury Tuesday ordered Mr. Barnett to pay will have on America's larger immigration debate and the efforts of some illegals to get compensation from a country they aren't even allowed to enter....

"My country has let me down." That's the assessment of an Arizona rancher who was sued by six illegal immigrants he detained on his property and turned over to the Border Patrol in 2004. On Tuesday an eight-member federal jury in Tucson threw out the claim brought by the six illegal aliens that Roger Barnett violated their civil rights when he detained them at gunpoint on his ranch nearly five years ago. The panel also ruled against the plaintiffs' claims of battery and false imprisonment. But the jury did find Barnett liable on four claims of assault and four claims...

TUCSON, Ariz. — A jury in Tucson has found that a southern Arizona rancher didn't violate the civil rights of a group of illegal immigrants who claimed he detained them at gunpoint in 2004. The federal jury also found Roger Barnett wasn't liable on claims of battery and false imprisonment. But the jury did find him liable Tuesday on four claims of assault and four claims of infliction of emotional distress. The jurors ordered Barnett to pay nearly $78,000 in damages. The bulk of that is punitive.

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. ...

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. 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...

TUCSON - A Douglas rancher known for detaining illegal immigrants faces a lawsuit from a local Hispanic family that accuses him of pointing a loaded rifle at them. The family is asking for at least $200,000 for emotional distress following an encounter with rancher Roger Barnett on his ranch, according a lawsuit filed Friday in Cochise County Superior Court. Ronald Morales, his father, his 9- and 11-year-old daughters and their 11-year-old friend were deer hunting on Oct. 30 when they encountered Barnett. Morales said Barnett pointed a cocked and loaded AR-15 rifle at the group - all U.S. citizens who...

Protecting property from illegal invasionAuthor talks to head of group deterring human flow from Mexico Posted: January 17, 20041:00 a.m. Eastern Editor's note: In "Illegals: The Imminent Threat Posed by Our Unsecured U.S.-Mexico Border," veteran journalist Jon E. Dougherty documents a truth that both major political parties have missed – namely, that sustained high immigration levels from south of the border will continue to pose economic, labor, security and criminal threats to the United States, unless American and Mexican leaders find ways to limit it. In researching the book, Dougherty interviewed leaders of citizen border groups that are doing their...

PUERTO PEÑASCO, Sonora - Concerned about the growing number of armed civilians in southern Arizona patrolling the Arizona-Sonora border on their own, the leaders of both states and a powerful cross-border lobbying group called Friday for investigations to see if any of the patrols are breaking the law. The Arizona-Mexico Commission took up the issue during its semi-annual conference this week in Puerto Peñasco, also known as Rocky Point, recommending that Arizona officials "address the vigilante situation in Cochise County." The commission is a public-private organization with offices in Arizona and Sonora, chaired by each state's governor and which...