From our experience, most of the folks that we work with are all staying here for the holidays. They're definitely staying for fear of not getting back in.

The absurdity of it gets played out in the day-to-day lives of Border Patrol agents. Everybody knows somebody [in the U.S. illegally] who has some kind of relationship with a Border Patrol agent. Either someone in their family is married to one, or they're sleeping with one. People's lives are very complicated and intertwined and they're not very clear-cut.

People had been afraid to speak out. They fear repercussions; they fear being targeted, because (the Border Patrol) is so dominant and so imposing in their communities, where they're told they don't have any rights.

The bill is completely ignoring the economic, political and social reality of the United States. Immigrants have been and will continue to be an integral part of the country's social fabric.

[Sotero kept quiet, worrying that her family would be targeted. But she found comfort in numbers at last week's rally, organized by Tucson's Border Action Network. In August 2004, BAN hosted a community forum where anger simply erupted.] People had been afraid to speak out, ... They fear repercussions; they fear being targeted, because (the Border Patrol) is so dominant and so imposing in their communities, where they're told they don't have any rights.

They needed a school teacher to organize things,