The Marauders: Standing Up to Vigilantes in the American Borderlands

by Patrick Strickland

This real-life Western tells the story of how citizens in a small Arizona border town stood up to anti-immigrant militias and vigilantes.

The Marauders uncovers the riveting nonfiction saga of far-right militias terrorizing the border towns of southern Arizona. In one of the towns profiled, Arivaca, rogue militia members killed a man and his nine-year-old daughter in 2009. In response, the residents organized and spent two years trying to push the new militias out through boycotts and by urging local businesses to ban them. The militias and vigilante groups again raised the stakes, spreading Pizzagate-style conspiracy theories alleging that town residents were complicit in child sex trafficking, prompting fears of vigilante violence.

The Marauders flips the standard formula most often applied to stories about immigration and the far right. Too often those stories are told from the perspective of the ones committing the violence. While Strickland doesn’t shy away from exploring those dark themes, the far right are not the protagonists of the book. Rather, the people targeted by hate groups, and the individuals who rose up to stop them in their tracks, are the heroes of this dramatic story.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction

258 pages, Hardcover

First published February 22, 2022

About the author

Patrick Strickland is a fiction writer and journalist from Texas. He's the author of several nonfiction books about borders and the far right and the short story collection A History of Heartache. He was a 2024 de Groot Foundation Writer of Note.

Reviews

[Ericka Clou · Rating 5 out of 5]

A zoom-in on the realities of life in a border town with a zoom out to the political context causing that reality. Well-researched and well-written.

[Laurie Parsons Cantillo · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a volunteer for Humane Borders and someone who frequents Arivaca and who has been personally harassed by vigilantes, I loved this book. It’s well researched with stories of the gutsy people of a small borderlands town who have compassion for migrants and zero tolerance for the grifters who invaded their peaceful community with weapons and hysteria about a mythical “invasion.” Thank you to the author for telling this important story.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you’re looking to better understand the realities, nuances, and dynamics of American borderlands, this is a must-read. Not only is the breadth of the reporting impressive, but Strickland has a unique gift for storytelling and depicting the true human element at the heart of every chapter, carrying the reader along through what is an otherwise harrowing reality at the US border. He achieves here what every great writer does: the deconstruction of an impossibly complex topic into a story that invokes a range of emotions in the reader, namely outrage, disbelief, compassion and most importantly — empathy.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marauders documents an American reality, currently in progress in the borderlands with Mexico, that belongs in the realm of Mad Max or Apocalypse Now. This title is essential reading to understand the lunacy and danger posed by far-right militias in the USA, a force that has regenerated from disparate groups into a potent, organized movement in recent years.

[Shane · Rating 5 out of 5]

A stunning narrative from Patrick Strickland that shows how the border is everywhere: particularly in the lives of people who feels called to respond to it, in both loving and frightening ways. Absolute must read book for the year; a masterclass on explicating divisive and compelling political issues through literary prose plucked from the best of modern fiction.

[Austin Wrathall · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book begins with the story of an Arizona border town standing up to a militia group by banning them from many local establishments. However it quickly shifts to focus on the militias themselves and never really returns to the townspeople and their efforts to stop them. As a profile and history of borderland militias it’s excellent. As a chronicle of how towns stand up to these extremists it’s lacking.

P.S. the narration for the audiobook was very poor. The reader sounds awkward and robotic. Read the print version instead.

[Edward ott · Rating 5 out of 5]

the militias are run by just terrible people who seem much more interested in fame and fortune than anything else.