Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/04/19/racist-new-mexico-militia-deta.html
“If these people follow our verbal commands, we hold them until Border Patrol comes. Border Patrol has never asked us to stand down.”
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I’m seeing “Constitutional” but not “Confederate”, as this post’s headline promises. You can imagine my relief, as a Confederate militia would presumably enslave the migrants. But what’s up with the headline?
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yeah… weird
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Mr. Benvie contended that his group’s actions were legal, comparing the detention of the migrants to “a verbal citizen’s arrest.”
If any citizen can enforce Federal law now does that mean we can form vigilante groups to go after rich white dudes for tax evasion?
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How about the president. We have more evidence he committed treason than these militias have that these asylum sedkers are actually here illegally.
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It won’t be long before someone gets shot, if they haven’t already. Hard to know if there’s a dead body in the middle of a vast stretch of remote desert.
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This is kidnapping, pure and simple, but the authorities will turn a blind eye. How long does it take a group like this to grow into a death squad?
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Although that wouldn’t necessarily make them any worse than the actual Border Patrol, whose numbers include serial rapists/murderers.
I have a sinking feeling we’re going to get to find out.
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They find those with some regularity. Cause of death usually unknown (usually speculated to hyperthermia). 128 in 2018 and just Arizona alone.
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“We’re just here to support the Border Patrol and show the public the reality of the border,” the racist group’s leader says.
The reality that most of them are just average people looking to escape violence and/or find opportunities for them and their families? That reality, or something else?
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I’m not a lawyer but what they’re doing sounds like domestic terrorism (18 US Code, Chapter 113B, Section 2331) and the article implies they’ve captured evidence of their acts on video so prosecuting them should be a slam dunk.
Holding civilians hostage at gunpoint is certainly intimidating a civilian population. They might be able to argue they didn’t actually fire so it’s not a violent act, but I bet a lawyer could argue it’s an act dangerous to human life.
If they try to claim it’s not terrorism to hold hostage non-citizens, I’d ask them in court to read the definition of “domestic terrorism” in the US Code and to point out where the word “citizen” appears. [Spoiler alert: it doesn’t.]
Actually, reading through that section it appears their acts may be international terrorism, as their acts
occur primarily outside the territorial jurisdiction of the United States, or transcend national boundaries in terms of the means by which they are accomplished, the persons they appear intended to intimidate or coerce, or the locale in which their perpetrators operate or seek asylum
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But you see,
they’re white
So they can’t be terrorists. You must be misunderstanding them. This is just some kind of isolated incident.
/s
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Bullets cause a lot of friction.
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If we have armed paramilitary gangs accosting people at the border - I guess we don’t control the border.
Send the National Guard after them.
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In the second video, the guy who calls himself Conservative Antonio is making comments on camera about how pathetic they look, and saying stuff like 'look what they’re doing… makes me sick… makes me want to slap his ass…" (hear Antonio’s comments at about the 20:01 mark).
And what’s with his accent? It’s got a distinctive American English/LatAm Spanish ring to it. How many generations away from the border is his family? Wonder what level of schooling this guy got.
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Remember, the idea that we have to protect our borders is a right wing narrative as is the idea that not everyone can become a citizen of the U.S. simply by coming here. Our immigration laws are based in racism and have nothing to do with what this country was intended to be.
The “crime” these people are guilty of is the simple misdemeanor Failure to Present. That’s it. They are guilty of a misdemeanor because they did not talk to a CBP agent.
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So now Neo-Nazis running our immigration/border policy have their own version of Chetniks.
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