Where The Government Won't, The People Will
Sheriff David Clarke (Ret.)
Posted: Apr 26, 2019 12:19 AM

Last week it was reported that an “armed militia group” had detained a group of illegal migrants crossing the United States southern border. The story said the militia group held the illegal migrants and turned them over to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents. Many supporters of illegal migration screamed foul that this group engaged in this behavior.

First of all, no one should be surprised that this occurred. I do not necessarily support this type of citizen involvement in detaining bands of migrants illegally crossing into the sovereign territory of the United States—not yet anyway. However, I am getting to that point.

I was recently at the border in the Rio Grande Valley and Big Bend Sector at the Texas border. What I saw with my own eyes shocked me. I watched as groups of 30 to 40 people casually crossed the unsecured border into the U.S. They had no fear that they would be apprehended, rather, they sought out border patrol agents to turn themselves in and claim asylum. All were well-dressed and appeared well-fed. No one was famished or thirsty. This was obviously an organized effort. Some had temporary Mexican visas. It is nearly 2,000 miles from their home country of Guatemala and Honduras to the U.S. border. They indicated to me that their journey had taken about two weeks to get to the U.S. border. That long trek on foot to arrive in clean clothes, not hungry or thirsty doesn’t pass the eye test.

As a former law enforcement officer, it was a helpless feeling not being able to do something about blatant law violations occurring right before my eyes. I lacked the authority to act. While at the border I talked to ranchers and landowners who told me about the constant flow of illegal migrants across their property. Their homes and sheds have been broken into, their property has been stolen, and sometimes they were confronted menacingly. Border Patrol agents were too far away to respond in a timely fashion, as was the local sheriff. In the Big Bend sector in Sanderson County, they had about ten deputies to cover 2,400 square miles. The Border Patrol had about 19 agents to cover that area. At the height of their staffing, the Border Patrol had 92 agents covering that sector. Law enforcement is devastatingly overwhelmed at the border.

In Sanderson County, I spent several days with the Texas Minutemen—a group of volunteers who were serving as eyes and ears passing on information to the Border Patrol when they observed illegal border crossings, and yes, they were armed, which was their right. They never detained anybody. What this group was doing in Texas was entirely lawful. The ACLU aided by their accomplices in the liberal media slanders these groups with inflammatory labels calling them armed militia vigilantes.

That gets me back to what occurred in New Mexico. The ACLU demanded the governor investigate this group, in part, because they were armed. So what? As long as they are lawfully armed, who cares? I don’t. I think they would be stupid to be out in the middle of nowhere and unarmed. In a letter to the governor and the New Mexico attorney general, the ACLU, of course, not wanting to waste the opportunity to politicize this, blamed President Trump for encouraging this citizen group. The ACLU, not surprisingly, labeled them as racists and referred to them as white nationalists and fascists with no credible connection. This is straight off of the pro-illegal immigration talking points memo. The ACLU described these illegal aliens as having been kidnapped. They cited the citizen group as breaking the law but said nothing of the law violation of the illegal aliens. My response to this inflammatory rhetoric is… shut up.

New Mexico Governor Grisham issued a statement saying, "It should go without saying that regular citizens have no authority to arrest or detain anyone." Grisham went on to claim, "My office and our state police are coordinating with the Attorney General's Office and local police to determine what has gone on and what can be done."

Grisham said nothing about investigating illegal border crossers or demanding that the Federal government step up their game to seal and protect the New Mexico border. Yeah, that’s right. Let’s make the U.S. citizens the bad guys. That is tacit approval for support of illegal migration.

People along the southern border, dealing with this crisis, have had enough of their government not protecting them. When the government refuses to protect, it has an obligation to allow individuals to protect themselves. I know this is a slippery slope but it is caused by the left’s systematic destruction of the rule of law. When states set up sanctuary status and provide a safe harbor for illegal aliens, it has a cascading effect. Citizens will do the same by taking the law into their own hands, and the result won’t be pretty. Support for the rule of law and the federal government enforcing our immigration laws would lessen the need for citizen groups to feel they have to do it themselves. Groups like the United Constitutional Patriots are no longer going to outsource to the federal government their right to be protected from illegal immigration.

Too many people forget that the government derives its authority from the consent of the governed. That is us. We the people gave them that authority and we the people can take it away. We are approaching that point. When the government doesn’t act on our behalf, the people will. The Founding Fathers taught us this.

Sheriff David Clarke Jr. is former Sheriff of Milwaukee Co, Wisconsin, President of AmericasSheriff LLC, Senior Advisor for America First, author of the book Cop Under Fire: Beyond Hashtags of Race

Crime and Politics for a Better America. To learn more visit https://www.americassheriff.com/ .

https://townhall.com/columnists/sheriffd...e-will-n2545433

The government doesn't like people doing their job better than them ...

April 20, 2019 / 6:47 PM / 5 days ago
FBI arrests leader of armed group stopping migrants in New Mexico
Andrew Hay

TAOS, N.M. (Reuters) - The FBI on Saturday said it had arrested Larry Hopkins, the leader of an armed group that is stopping undocumented migrants after they cross the U.S.-Mexico border into New Mexico.

The arrest came two days after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) accused the group of illegally detaining migrants and New Mexico’s Democratic Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham ordered an investigation.

Hopkins, 69, also known as Johnny Horton, was arrested in Sunland Park, New Mexico, on a federal complaint charging him with being a felon in possession of firearms and ammunition, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said in a statement.

“We’re not worried about it, he’s going to be cleared,” said Jim Benvie, a spokesman for the United Constitutional Patriots (UCP), blaming his arrest on political pressure from Lujan Grisham.

Hopkins is the “national commander” of the UCP, which has had around half a dozen members camped out on a rotating basis near Sunland Park since late February.

The UCP describes itself as a “patriot group” helping U.S. Border Patrol cope with record numbers of Central American families crossing the border to seek asylum.

Dressed in camouflage and carrying rifles, UCP members have helped U.S. Border Patrol detain over 5,600 migrants in the last two months, Benvie said. Videos posted online by the group show members telling migrants to stop, sit down, and wait for agents to arrive. Critics accuse the UCP of impersonating law enforcement.

Crowdfunding sites PayPal and GoFundMe on Friday barred the group, citing policies not to promote hate or violence, after the ACLU called the UCP a “fascist militia.”

“Today’s arrest by the FBI indicates clearly that the rule of law should be in the hands of trained law enforcement officials, not armed vigilantes,” New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas said in a statement of Hopkins’s arrest.

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https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-i...o-idUSKCN1RW0O5

Monday, 22 April 2019
Leader of Militia Helping to Secure Border Arrested by FBI on Gun Charges
Written by Warren Mass

On April 20, FBI agents arrested Larry Mitchell Hopkins, also known as Johnny Horton, Jr., the commander of a private militia group called the United Constitutional Patriots, on a federal complaint charging him with being a felon in possession of firearms and ammunition. Hopkins/Horton was arrested in Sunland Park, New Mexico.

The FBI’s Albuquerque office tweeted two statements on April 20, the first announcing the arrest of Hopkins, and another stating that Hopkins/Horton is expected to have an initial appearance in U.S. District Court in Las Cruces on April 22.

New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas released a statement in response to the arrest, which said in part, “This is a dangerous felon who should not have weapons around children and families.”

Balderas added, “The arrest by the FBI indicates clearly that the rule of law should be in the hand of trained law enforcement officials, not armed vigilantes.”

CNN reported that during the week prior to the arrest of Hopkins, videos posted online purported to show migrants being detained by the United Constitutional Patriots before the militia turned them over to U.S. Border Patrol.

The videos prompted an April 18 letter from the ACLU of New Mexico to the state’s Democratic Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham and Attorney General Balderas. The letter stated, in part:

Zitat

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Two nights ago, on April 16, 2019, an armed fascist militia organization describing itself as the United Constitutional Patriots arrested nearly three hundred people seeking safety in the United States, including young children, near Sunland Park, New Mexico. Other videos appear to show arrests in the past few hours. The vigilante members of the organization, including Jim Benvie, who posted videos and photographs of the unlawful arrests to social media, are not police or law enforcement and they have no authority under New Mexico or federal law to detain or arrest migrants in the United States. Their actions undermine the legitimate efforts of our state’s law enforcement officials to keep New Mexico families safe and they erode community trust.

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The Trump administration’s vile racism has emboldened white nationalists and fascists to flagrantly violate the law. This has no place in our state: we cannot allow racist and armed vigilantes to kidnap and detain people seeking asylum. We urge you to immediately investigate this atrocious and unlawful conduct.

The ACLU’s use of emotionally charged buzz words such as “vile racism,” “white nationalists,” “vigilante,” and “fascists” should have signaled that their complaint was not impartial, but it nevertheless seemed to have at least some influence on the timing of Hopkins’ arrest, which came just two days afterwards.

A March 21 report from ABC’s El Paso affiliate KVIA noted that the United Constitutional Patriots group “has set up camp near the border fence for nearly a month” — which would have been in February.

Therefore, no arrests were made on Hopkins or any other member of the group for over two months, yet just two days after the ACLU sent a letter to the governor and attorney general of New Mexico, the FBI swooped in and arrested Hopkins. The timing seems suspiciously odd.


https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/im...-on-gun-charges