MA Photojournalism Student, Mike Kane, 2004

Project overview:

While pondering possible subjects for my graduate master’s project I came across an article about armed vigilante groups patrolling the Mexican border and apprehending illegal immigrants in southern Arizona. Having already considered immigration as a focus of my project I decided to phone one of these groups, Ranch Rescue, to see what type of access I could get. They were starved for more media attention and it didn’t take much to get invited out to see their newly established border compound near Douglas, Arizona.

From the Missouri Militia to retired soldiers from South Africa, Ranch Rescue was attracting a motley blend of soldier-of-fortune types, all with the shared belief that illegal immigration is destroying America and should be stopped at all cost. The group was heavily armed with both guns and volatile ideology, as men would alternate from target practice with illegally modified automatic AR-15’s, to sitting around the fire, shooting off racially charged condemnation of the immigrant flow from south of the border.

For a period of about 5 months I regularly made the 10-hour drive from Austin to Arizona/Mexico border to stay with Ranch Rescue, sleeping in a bunker, going out on patrols, and even witnessing a few immigrant apprehensions in the desert. What I was seeing were the fiery beginnings of the Minute Man movement, a more-mainstream anti-immigration movement that continues to this day.

Andrew Stapp, a Ranch Rescue volunteer from California, is prepared for a night patrol of private property near Douglas, Arizona. Ranch Rescue, which began in Texas, officially describes itself as a civilian property security organization that operates on private land when invited to do so by landowners. Almost without exception when Ranch Rescue is called into action, however, it is to deal with immigrant trespassers from Mexico.

A Ranch Rescue volunteer at Camp Thunderbird looks for hiding immigrants in an area laden with footprints and trampled brush 100 feet from the U.S./Mexico border.

A nineteen-year old volunteer cleans AR-15′s and other assault rifles at the Camp Thunderbird compound. Ranch Rescue has amassed and stored on site several legal and illegal assault weapons along with thousands of rounds of ammunition.

A Ranch Rescue volunteer loads supplies into a room used to store guns and ammunition.

Nineteen-year old “Tiny” heads out on a patrol. He heard about Ranch Rescue from a friend and rode a Greyhound bus from his home in Washington state to become a volunteer.

An illegal Mexican immigrant, one of eight caught in one night by Civil Homeland Defense on public border land, sits in the light of a CHD volunteer spotlight while other volunteers secure the area and notify Border Patrol.

The sixteen-year old daughter of an Arizona ranch owner takes aim at a target on the Ranch Rescue compund near Douglas, Arizona.

A group of Mexican immigrants is apprehended in the Arizona desert by members of Civil Homeland Defense. After offering them food and water, CHD members surround the immigrants and wait for Border Patrol authorities to arrive.

A wave from a Ranch Rescue volunteer yields no response from border patrol agents patrolling the border road. Tension runs high between the two groups. Ranch Rescue feels the border patrol is inept and out to shut them down, while border patrol officials claim that Ranch Rescue operations make an already volatile situation worse. “We come across some guys in the dark dressed in full army fatigues, we don’t know who they are,” says one BP agent. “We get a lot of drugs coming through here…it’s an accident waiting to happen.”

After a day filled with patrolling the property and building bunk beds, a retired fire fighter and Ranch Rescue volunteer relaxes in the main house with a beer.

Photographer bio:
Mike Kane joined the Seattle Post-Intelligencer full-time in 2007 after serving a Hearst Fellowship, which included stops at the P-I in 2006 and the San Francisco Chronicle in 2007. Prior to his Seattle stint in 2006, Mike worked at the San Antonio Express-News, where he covered Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, drug cartel violence and prostitution along the U.S./Mexico border, Latino immigration and the San Juan de Sabinas mine disaster in Coahuila, Mexico. In San Francisco Mike pursued a project on sex culture, and in Seattle, self-initiated stories include in-depth essays on Latino street gangs and downtown bike messengers, a profile of a fishing family gillnetting in Alaska, and a medium format photo project expressing first impressions of the city. Mike studied at the University of Texas in Austin and graduated in 2004 after completing a master’s photo project on armed civilian border militias operating on the Arizona/Mexico border.

Awards that Mike has received for his various projects include: Hearst Newspapers / NPPA monthly clips (various awards); Society of Professional Journalists, Special Report HM (2006); Society for News Design, Award of Excellence (2006); NPPA Best Use of Photography, 2nd Place Q4 (2006); Hearst Newspapers Journalism Fellowship (2005); Associated Collegiate Press, Photo Excellence Award (2004); Texas Intercollegiate Press Association, 1st Place News (2004); Society of Professional Journalists, Mark of Excellence (2003); and Eddie Adams Workshop (Sept. 2002).

More about Mike and his work.

All content on this page courtesy of Mike Kane, and may not be copied, reproduced or otherwise redistributed without express permission. Info last updated 10/30/08.

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