He is famous in immigrant-rights circles as an activist who led campaigns against civilian border patrols like the Minuteman Project. Now Ray Ybarra runs a humanitarian center for migrants in Agua Prieta, Sonora, just across the border from his hometown of Douglas, Ariz. Through his work as a writer, photographer, public speaker and documentarian, Ybarra tries to help people see the world from a migrant's perspective, which means rethinking borders, immigration controls and the movement of people.

"My work in the past has been reactive - reacting to the vigilantes coming to the border, to the plans to build a wall. Now I want to do something proactive. Part of that is debunking the notion that nation state rights are more important than human rights. ... Migrants believe they have a human right to cross borders."

Currently on a six-month speaking tour throughout North America, Ybarra spoke Monday night at the Denver office of the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization that supports immigrant rights.

For several years, Ybarra worked with the ACLU in the border region around Douglas helping to organize teams of "legal observers" who follow civilian border patrol groups in the desert with the goal of protecting the rights and safety of migrants.

Ybarra says the impact of a few hundred civilian border patrol volunteers along a 2,000-mile border is minimal, but he credits the group for ratcheting up the hostility towards immigrants - Latinos in particular.

"They all have this fear that America, the country they believe in, is rapidly changing - the browning of America," Ybarra said. "I think (the role of the Minutemen) has been to mainstream the notion that there is an invasion and we are being harmed by the brown hordes - it's the mainstreaming of hate toward immigrants that was at first marginalized but now is the norm."

At Ybarra's Centro de Atención a Migrantes Exodus in Agua Prieta, Sonora, the town where his mother was born, the focus is on helping migrants who were recently deported or who are about to make the dangerous crossing. Migrants can make a phone call to their family in the United States or elsewhere in Mexico. They can get a hot meal, a free place to stay and a change of clothing.

In speaking engagements such as the one last night, Ybarra tries to impart what he has learned form the migrants in hopes of shaping and strengthening the immigrant-rights movement across the country.

"Here are these people taking this unbelievable risk, suffering so much to make their lives and the lives of their loved ones a little bit better," he said. "The question is how do we, the privileged activists, go out in the desert and literally and metaphorically walk in solidarity with them?"