Thread: Armed militia group kicked out of their New Mexico camp

Armed militia group that detained migrants kicked out of their New Mexico camp

Daniel Borunda, El Paso Times
Published 8:59 p.m. ET April 22, 2019

United Constitutional Patriots have been camping out and patrolling an area of the border in Anapra, New Mexico for a few months. Mark R Lambie, El Paso Times


EL PASO, Texas - Members of the United Constitutional Patriots, who set up a border camp to monitor immigrants in Sunland Park, New Mexico, were told to move their campsite by Friday.

The Sunland Park Police Department and representatives of the railroad that owns the land told the militia members on Monday that they would have to move.

The city of Sunland Park on Monday also set up "No Trespassing" signs in the area. The land is owned by Union Pacific.

"Members of the United Constitutional Patriots were not given permission to camp on or access Union Pacific property," Union Pacific said in a statement.

ACLU: Investigate the armed civilians are detaining migrants at the border


The United Constitutional Patriots-New Mexico Border Ops group were visited by law enforcement Monday as they erected 'No Trespassing' signs denoting the city of Sunland Park's boundary near their camp. Union Pacific Police said they are camped on railroad land and will need to vacate by Friday. (Photo: Mark Lambie / El Paso Times)

Union Pacific stated that the group set up a camp adjacent to Union Pacific property and trespassed on railroad property to access this camp.

Union Pacific has its own police force that enforces trespassing laws.

The group's removal follows Saturday's arrest of the militia group's alleged commander.

FBI agents arrested 69-year-old Larry Mitchell Hopkins, who is known as Johnny Horton Jr., on a federal weapons charge. Hopkins appeared in a Las Cruces court on Monday.


The United Constitutional Patriots-New Mexico Border Ops group were visited by law enforcement Monday as they erected 'No Trespassing' signs denoting the city of Sunland Park's boundary near their camp. Union Pacific Police said they are camped on railroad land and will need to vacate by Friday. (Photo: Mark Lambie / El Paso Times)


On April 16, members of the militia group, who have conducted patrols of the U.S.-Mexico border in Sunland Park, detained more than 300 migrants who crossed the border illegally. The group posted a video of the detention, which drew the ire of the ACLU of New Mexico.

For months, large numbers of migrants seeking asylum have been crossing the border and surrendering to Border Patrol agents in the El Paso region.

Sunland Park is along the border, next to El Paso. The area is a busy crossing point because border fencing ends at the foot of Mount Cristo Rey.

The armed militia group wearing masks and military-style uniforms had been in the area for about two months, Sunland Park Police Chief Javier Guerra said.

Larry Mitchell Hopkins: Alleged commander of militia group that detained migrants makes initial court appearance
BY COX BUSINESS


"We have not had any complaints, whatsoever," Guerra said, until the video was publicized last week.

"To this day I had not received any communication from anybody or complaints that our citizens felt threatened," Guerra said.

The United Constitutional Patriots has its "base" at Hopkins' home in a trailer park in the small community of Flora Vista near Farmington in northern New Mexico, according to federal documents.

Guerra said he had spoken to the group after their arrival and had warned them.


"About two months ago, I went out to talk to them and I told them what was expected of them," Guerra said. "I told them they couldn’t be pulling their weapons on defenseless individuals. No matter where they are from, these individuals are human beings. And they can’t be detaining anybody.”

On Saturday, Sunland Park police assisted FBI agents in the arrest of Hopkins on a federal warrant.

"He came down on his own to the police station so that we could speak with him. The FBI was waiting for him at the office," Guerra said.

Hopkins was taken into custody without incident. He remains held at the Doña Ana County jail without bond.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...mp/3545014002/

FBI arrests member of rightwing militia accused of detaining migrants

Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

Armed militia group that detained migrants kicked out of their New Mexico camp


Union Pacific stated that the group set up a camp adjacent to Union Pacific property and trespassed on railroad property to access this camp.

Union Pacific has its own police force that enforces trespassing laws.

Six undocumented immigrants found hiding on Union Pacific train

[IMG]https://media.graytvinc.com/images/810*455/BCSO+5+14+WEB.jpg[/IMG]
(Brewster County Sheriff's Office)

Posted: Mon 8:21 AM, May 14, 2018


BREWSTER COUNTY -- Six undocumented immigrants have been detained after they were found hiding on a train over the weekend.
According to the Brewster County Sheriff's Office, their deputies went to assist Border Patrol agents working at the site of a Union Pacific train on Sunday night.
There agents and deputies found six men hiding on the train.
They were all found to be in the country illegally and were taken into custody.
The suspects were turned over to Border Patrol where they'll face prosecution and deportation.

https://www.cbs7.com/content/news/Si...482539531.html

Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

Armed militia group that detained migrants kicked out of their New Mexico camp

Union Pacific stated that the group set up a camp adjacent to Union Pacific property and trespassed on railroad property to access this camp.

Union Pacific has its own police force that enforces trespassing laws.

Skeletons Tell Tale of Gamble By Immigrants

By JOHN W. FOUNTAIN WITH JIM YARDLEYOCT. 16, 2002

About four months ago somewhere along a stretch of railroad tracks in Texas, perhaps, or Mexico, 11 people took a death-defying gamble.


They climbed into an empty grain hopper, a rail car that can be tightly sealed to keep its contents clean and dry. The hatch was shut and locked from the outside, leaving the stowaways, presumably immigrants being smuggled from Mexico or Central America, trapped in stifling darkness.


Then they died. Whether they suffocated, starved or succumbed to the heat, the authorities do not know, only that they died horribly, and unnoticed.


The Union Pacific hopper ended up in Oklahoma, where it sat unopened in long-term storage all summer and into the fall. On Sunday, it traveled to this small farm town 60 miles northeast of Omaha, where a worker at a grain elevator opening grain hoppers for routine inspection found the near-skeletal remains, Sheriff Tom Hogan of Crawford County said at a news conference here this morning.
Sheriff Hogan described the sight as heartbreaking.


''Our thoughts go to those people that found themselves for whatever reason trapped inside that rail car,'' he said. ''It had to be frightening.''


Continue reading the main story



Hours after the discovery, the hopper was taken to Des Moines, where the bodies were removed and police investigators began trying to determine their identities.


Sheriff Hogan said the authorities had not determined the immigrants' sex, age or nationality. He said he did not know how long the corpses had been trapped, but suggested that because of the state of decomposition, it was at least ''weeks ago, as opposed to days ago.''
Jerry Heinauer, director of the Immigration and Naturalization Service for the Omaha District, which includes Nebraska and Iowa, said the hopper left Matamoros, Mexico, four months ago and had been parked in Oklahoma from mid-June until Oct. 10, before arriving here.


José Luis Cuevas, the Mexican consul for Nebraska, Iowa and South and North Dakota, said he was working under the assumption that the immigrants were Mexicans.


John Bromley, a spokesman for Union Pacific in Omaha, said the dead had been found in a grain hopper at the Farm Service Co-op and Archer Daniels Midland elevators in Denison, but declined further comment.


A spokeswoman for Archer Daniels Midland, Karla Miller, said the hopper had been in long-term storage until the company recently ordered a group of hoppers to transport grain.


Sheriff Hogan said the hatch of the hopper could be opened only from outside. He said that the immigrants wore ''warm weather'' clothing and that there was no grain in the hopper.


The authorities said this morning that they had received telephone calls from as far as New York from people trying to find out whether the immigrants were their relatives.


Many residents were stunned in this farming town of 7,339 with a growing Hispanic population.


Mayor Ken Livingston of Denison said he had spoken with religious and community leaders to help with managing grief if the immigrants had family members here.


''If what's alleged is that this is a smuggling operation,'' Mr. Livingston asked, ''who's going to come forward?''
Along the Texas-Mexico border, where the Union Pacific freight crossed from Matamoros to Brownsville, Tex., Border Patrol officials doubted that the immigrants had boarded in Mexico.


The Border Patrol, the Customs Service and the private security force of the railroad routinely inspect trains at crossings with dogs that can sniff out drugs and people.


Typically, officials said, illegal immigrants cross the Rio Grande alone or in small groups led by a smuggler known as a coyote.
Harry Beall, an assistant chief of the Border Patrol in the McAllen, Tex., sector, said several organized smuggling rings in that region specialized in placing illegal immigrants in northbound boxcars.


Chief Beall added that his office kept a database of names and telephone numbers of smugglers. He said his office had contacted officials in Iowa to determine whether any telephone numbers or names had been found in the pockets of the immigrants.
Chief Beall said trains were typically inspected first at crossings and again at railyards and border patrol checkpoints in Texas as far north as Corpus Christi, 125 miles north of Brownsville.


''We walk the train, and we have canines that are trained to alert to human cargo or contraband,'' he said. ''If it's a grain hopper, we bang the side with our fist. The empty ones sound like a big drum. The empty ones we look in.''


The McAllen office caught 2,095 illegal immigrants in freight cars in the 2002 fiscal year, including 26 people found on a train in June. In that case, the immigrants were found by a trained dog in a grain hopper filled with soda ash, the same sort of hopper with the bodies in Iowa.


In 1987, border agents found 18 dead illegal immigrants in a freight train that had stopped in Sierra Blanca, Tex., on a boiling summer day. One man survived by using a railroad spike to cut an air hole in the freight car.


Often, officials say, immigrants are locked in a car by the coyote. Sometimes the car is accidentally locked. Many times, immigrants, realizing that they are trapped, bang against the sides of freight cars, desperately trying to call the attention of someone outside.
Chief Beall assumed that the dead immigrants in Iowa had most likely tried at some point to call attention.


Today in Denison, residents voiced dismay at news of the deaths.


''I can't imagine people being so desperate to come to the United States and be willing to do that,'' Lori Schmeckpeper, a secretary at the Denison Baptist Church said.


Ms. Schmeckpeper noted that the town had seen an influx in recent years of Hispanic immigrants drawn by work at two meatpacking plants.


''I wonder if they even realized that once you get in one of those cars that you can't get out if it's shut from the outside,'' she said. ''I feel really bad for possibly the families that are still in Mexico and maybe the families that are over here that might have been waiting for them. It's such a horrible thing.''

https://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/16/u...mmigrants.html

Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

Union Pacific stated that the group set up a camp adjacent to Union Pacific property and trespassed on railroad property to access this camp.

Union Pacific has its own police force that enforces trespassing laws.

Texas Police Rescue Illegal Immigrants from Train Nearly 200 Miles from Border

AP File Photo/Eduardo VerdugoROB MILFORD21 Aug 201534 Ten illegal immigrants were rescued and captured in New Braunfels, Texas, Tuesday morning, when police found them on a north-bound Union Pacific freight train. New Braunfels is located almost 200 miles away from the Texas/Mexico border.

New Braunfels Police received a 9-1-1 call from a Spanish-speaking man saying he and several others were trapped on a train going through the city. Police then stopped the train, and worked through 80 cars until they found the men inside a container unit.


Five of the men required immediate medical attention and were taken to nearby hospitals, the other five men were treated and re-hydrated at the scene, where they awaited agents from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).


The rescued men ranged in age between 17 and 38. Preliminary reports say they boarded the train outside of Laredo. The immigrants reportedly planned on getting off the train when it got to Austin, about 50 miles further north.


Union Pacific Railroad police are working with Customs and Border Patrol to investigate where the men got on the train, and to determine who helped them in getting on the train.


The men are now in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and being questioned.


At this time, their status on remaining in the U.S., or being returned to Mexico is not known.

https://www.breitbart.com/border/201...s-from-border/

American Civil Liberties Union sues to uncover the extent of cooperation between railroad police and US immigration officers

By Chris Anderson | March 25, 2019
RELATED TOPICS: UNION PACIFIC | LAWSUITS | WEST | CALIFORNIA

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LOS ANGELES — The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California has filed a lawsuit it hopes will shed light on alleged operations conducted between U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Union Pacific Railroad Police.

According to a statement issued by the SoCal ACLU, the lawsuit is based upon alleged violations by ICE of the Freedom of Information Act. The ACLU claims ICE failed to fulfill a records request originally filed in September 2018 seeking information regarding possible cooperation between ICE and UP Police to detain individuals.

The ACLU alleges that on different occasions, UP Police detain individuals longer than allowed by law after making contact with the individuals near railroad property, and held them for several hours until representatives from ICE could arrive to take them into federal custody. In one alleged incident in February 2018, the ACLU claims a female was detained by UP Police two hours before being turned over to ICE and being taken into custody without having her Fifth Amendment rights read to her. The incidents cited in the lawsuit are alleged to have occurred in several locations in southern California.

The ACLU claims the alleged actions by UP Police have been rooted in racial profiling, and the work between ICE and UP Police has been shrouded in secrecy.

A statement from Union Pacific to NBC4 in Los Angeles says protecting the railroad's property is a priority regardless of the immigration status of any potential offender.

In a letter accompanying the lawsuit, the ACLU and several other groups are demanding Union Pacific Police cut ties with ICE.

http://trn.trains.com/news/news-wire...ation-officers

Armed Militia Group Leaves New Mexico Camp: Police

April 23, 2019, at 4:05 p.m.


Armed Militia Group Leaves New Mexico Camp: Police



The old (bottom R) and the new border fence dividing U.S. and Mexico is seen from Tecate, Mexico April 4, 2019. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso

REUTERS
BY JULIO-CESAR CHAVEZ and Andrew Hay

SUNLAND PARK, N.M./TAOS, N.M. (Reuters) - A group of armed civilians who have been stopping migrants illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border honored a request to leave their camp in New Mexico on Tuesday and appeared to be heading home, the local police chief said.

On Monday, their leader Larry Hopkins appeared in court in Las Cruces, New Mexico, to face firearms charges following his arrest on Saturday by the FBI.

Sunland Park, New Mexico, Police Chief Javier Correa said the group left their campsite outside the town following a request by the Union Pacific Railroad, which said they had trespassed on its land.

"It appears there's a little bit of disenchantment among the ranks there, they're not happy with the outcome with Mr. Hopkins," Correa said. "They were saying they're just tired of this B.S. and they're going back to their homes."

Union Pacific said on Tuesday in a statement that the group, the United Constitutional Patriots (UCP), did not have permission to be on its property.

UCP spokesman Jim Benvie previously said the group would comply with the railroad's request and it planned to relocate to a nearby site and continue patrolling the border.

Benvie and other members of the UCP did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A Union Pacific spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

https://www.usnews.com/news/us/artic...ing-activities

Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

Benvie and other members of the UCP did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Perhaps, they should walk into Mexico, then cross back over the Border locate BP, use fake identity, claim asylum for persecution in their own country, and get all kinds of assistance and sympathy.

Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

Armed Militia Group Leaves New Mexico Camp: Police

The dangerous criminal according to New Mexico's governor sings......