Armed militias are complicating already tense, complex crackdowns on immigration, the Border Patrol has warned.
The Associated Press reports that the Border Patrol issued a warning to agents to be on the look out for militias that are working in fatigues but have no authority law enforcement authority or training.
The warning came after agents were rounding up immigrants recently and were helped with men in fatigues. Border Patrol agents said they throught they were being helped by the Texas Department of Public Safety.
“How do they identify themselves? Do they have badges? How do we know who they are?” asked J.P. Rodriguez, a spokesman for the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office. “If they’re all just dressed in camos, it’s kind of hard to distinguish whether they’re law enforcement or not. … There’s a lot of potential for stuff to go wrong.”
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio warned of “chaos if you’re going to have private citizens dressed just like our deputies taking the law into their own hands.”
A member of the Arizona Minutemen militia pointed a rifle at a sheriff’s deputy last year after apparently mistaking him for a drug trafficker.
