Armed Patriots Vow Continued Patrols As
Monthly Border Crossings Reach 100,000
An armed group of citizen patriots patrolling
the U.S.-Mexico border in New Mexico have vowed to continue operations to assist Border
Patrol despite an eviction from their previous camp.
im Benvie, spokesman for the
newly formed Guardian Patriots, told the Las
Cruces Sun News numerous
“volunteer patriots” continue to patrol sections of the New Mexico border and
work in conjunction with Border Patrol officials, though they’ve moved to a new
location on private property.
“Nobody who’s been on the border left.
There’s been no breakup. Everyone is still here,”Benvie said, disputing
media reports that the group had packed up after the arrest of Larry Mitchell
Hopkins, the self-proclaimed “commander” of the United Constitutional Patriots
New Mexico Border Ops.
Hopkins is currently held
without bond in Albuquerque on federal weapons charges unrelated to the border
activities, according to the news site.
Just a few days after the
arrest in mid-April, Union Pacific evicted the group from their camp near a
border fence that company officials claimed was on railroad property. The
fallout followed allegations by the American Civil Liberties Union that the
Constitutional Patriots were detaining migrants and children at gunpoint.
Benvie denies the allegations,
but the controversy resulted in the crowd funding sites PayPal and GoFundMe
closing online campaigns for the Constitutional Patriots, so the group
relocated to private property and changed its name to Guardian Patriots.
But Benvie contends they’re not
leaving any time soon.
“If we left here right now we’re letting
America down,” said Benvie, who also disputed media reports about racist
comments and intimidating behavior attributed to the group.
Benvie told the Sun News an
Oklahoma man arrived in camp last month with an AR-15 and a handgun and he was
eager to use the weapons, but the
Guardian Patriots sent him on his way.
“He had never been vetted,” Benvie said. “He
was never a member of the group.”
When one member saw the
man appeared trigger happy, he told him, “’Dude, it ain’t like that. We’re not
using guns. We don’t point guns at people,’” Benvie
said.
The man reportedly then
expressed a desire to “shoot them all” and the Guardian Patriots immediately
disavowed him.
“We got rid of him and we
filed a police report,” Benvie said, adding that the group’s members carry weapons
in their vehicles for emergencies but do not typically carry them.
Border Patrol “welcomes
assistance” from private groups and the public in locating illegal immigrants
but “does not endorse private groups or organizations taking enforcement
matters into their own hands,” according to a statement.
Federal officials certainly need
the help.
Last Thursday alone,
Border Patrol took more than 1,700 illegal immigrants into custody in just the
El Paso sector, one of nine along the southern border.
Center
for Immigration Studies analysis of U.S. Customs and Border
Protection data finds the immigration crisis is getting worse by the month,
with nearly 100,000 apprehensions in April.
“Specifically, total Border Patrol
apprehensions in April 2019 were 98,977, an almost 7 percent increase over the
month before. The individual numbers are worse, because the number of (family
units) increased to 58,474 in April, an almost 10 percent increase over the
month before,” CIS reports.
“Plainly, (family units) and the smugglers
who assisting them have identified the loopholes that they can exploit to enter
the United States illegally and gain release,” according to CIS.
Most illegal immigrants are
coming from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador and claiming asylum with a
child by their side, which expedites their processing and release. They then free to roam the U.S. for
years before their case is fully adjudicated through the system.
According to an April
report by the Homeland Security Advisory Council’s CBP Families
and Children Care Panel:
The current time to process an asylum claim
for anyone who is not detained is over two years, not counting appeals.
No comments:
Post a Comment