The “migrant caravan” has generated much discussion in the USA, and now there is even more concern as “militias” are heading to the US border and the US military is making plans to deal with potential violent outbursts from them:
As President Donald Trump directs thousands of troops to the U.S.-Mexico border in a show of military force against an approaching caravan of migrants from Central America, preliminary intelligence assessments are preparing for encounters with a litany of groups from unregulated militias to transcontinental criminal organizations, according to documents obtained by Newsweek.
In a powerpoint presentation from Saturday, the Joint Force Land Component Commander Threat Working Group prepared an intelligence assessment for Pentagon officials as they begin to carry out Operation Faithful Patriot, the interagency operation with the Department of Defense and led by the Department of Homeland Security, that started Tuesday.
The presentation is marked as “UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO//LES,” meaning, the documents are for official use only and are law enforcement sensitive. Newsweek obtained the operational planning documents earlier this week from two different Defense Department sources that have direct knowledge of U.S. Northern Command’s mission on the southern U.S. border.
The documents take a detailed look at the four-point of entry locations spread across the southwest border and assesses where the caravan might travel. Two areas of concern to U.S. intelligence officials involving points of entry and transcontinental criminal organizations is the point of entry in Brownsville, Texas, where the Rio Grande River is located between Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico, and the San Ysidro point of entry, separating San Diego, California from Tijuana, Mexico.
The assessment underscored news reports that combatant commanders might encounter unregulated militia members along the southern border in alleged support of U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents.
“Estimated 200 unregulated armed militia members currently operating along the southwest border. Reported incidents of unregulated militias stealing National Guard equipment during deployments. They operate under the guise of citizen patrols supporting CBP [Customs and Border Protection] primarily between POEs [Points of Entry],” according to the documents.
The documents go onto highlight historical protests that support immigrants crossing the U.S. border. Those protests in some cases have shut down points of entry controlled by Customs and Border Protection, but the assessment concludes that protests are “normally peaceful unless extreme right or left groups attend.”
Militia groups and far-right activists have already announced plans to make their way to the U.S.-Mexico border with the aim of preventing caravan members from entering the country.
With the caravan still hundreds of miles away, it is unclear how many militia members will turn up. Among groups determined to help fortify the border, are members of the Minuteman Project.
Historically, Minutemen were once known as civilian colonists who organized to form self-trained militia groups during the American Revolution. Today, however, the Minuteman Project is an activist organization, which was founded in August 2004 by Jim Gilchrist and Chris Simcox and describes itself as a “citizen’s Neighborhood Watch on the southern border.”
Minutemen Project National Political Director Howie Morgan told Newsweek on Wednesday that the organization hoped to have its members out in full force at the border before the coming caravans arrive.
“We believe our nation is under attack by foreigners who refuse to accept the rule of law on how to become a citizen in the United States,” Morgan said.
Asked whether he believes that applies to migrants who arrive at official ports of entry at the border to make asylum claims through the U.S.’s long-standing legal process, Morgan said he believed Central Americans should make those claims “in their own country.”
“Instead of following the rules, they are using our nation’s laws as a shortcut to get in front of the line,” Morgan claimed.
To obtain asylum through the U.S.’s affirmative asylum process, however, asylum seekers must be “physically present in the United States,” according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Agency. Asylum seekers also are eligible to apply for asylum regardless of how they arrived in the country or what their current immigration status is.
On Monday, the Minuteman Project issued a call to action, asking “Minutemen and Minutewomen” to “converge on the U.S.-Mexico border immediately to support U.S. law enforcement and military organizations already there.”
“Your presence is needed along the 2,000-mile border from San Diego, California to Brownsville, Texas at any time for the next 90 days,” the organization said in a statement issued on its website.
Morgan said he was not sure how many Minuteman members would arrive at the border in the weeks ahead. However, he said he hoped to see people come out in “thousands,” but said that may be unlikely given that the government has already made strong efforts to fortify the southern border.
Of those who do arrive, Morgan said that members have been warned to follow the rule of law and focus their efforts on reporting migrants to Border Patrol authorities. However, he did say that he expected members would be armed.
“We understand how dangerous the border can be and we certainly want to ensure that all of our volunteers are safe,” he said. “If they are entitled and in an area where it is legal to carry guns, it is their right to do so,” he said.
On Wednesday, Trump announced that his administration could send as many as 15,000 troops to the southern border in anticipation of the thousands of migrants currently making their way to the U.S. with several caravans departing from Honduras and El Salvador.
Applauding the Trump administration’s controversial crackdown on immigration, the Minuteman Project spokesperson said that while the organization is “always looking to have a better security and immigration program in the United States,” Trump has “shown he is fighting to keep those efforts moving in the right direction.”
In its call to action for supporters to make their way to the southern border, the Minuteman Project tells members: “Remember, defending your nation’s sovereignty and its heralded stature as ‘a nation of laws’ does not make you a racist, a bigot, a xenophobe, a Nazi, a fascist… or any of the various epithets commonly used by our adversaries to falsely deface our patriotic virtue.
“The real fascists and xenophobes are those who openly hate us because we love our country just as we love our families and our communities,” the message continued.
It also warns members not to speak with news outlets, reminding them that “most newspaper reporters” will be “hostile to your presence on the border,” aside from Fox News, and One America News. (source, source)
People speak of threats on the US border, and there are real threats. Sometimes, the US Border Patrol does miss threats and people who should not come in do. However, given that the US-Mexico border is the most frequently crossed international border in the world, that border apprehensions have been declining for years, and that the US Border Patrol stopped for the year as of September 2018 396,579 people, which equals to one person every 75 seconds every day for the entire year, they do an substantial job at what is a difficult endeavor.
The US Border Patrol doesn’t need help. If they need help, they have the military. That is why the National Guard exists and is dispatched in times of chaos- because they are essentially the Army’s local duty force in the event of a real crisis.
They don’t need a group of what are (and having seen more than a few I can attest) too frequently groups of fat soldier wannabes with a savior-patriot complex carrying high-powered weapons around in public in the name of “protecting America” from “invaders.”
I don’t say this to belittle gun owners. Guns are important, and the Second Amendment is necessary, and those who seek to abolish the Second Amendment are either short-sighted fools that lack an understanding of historical dynamics, or they have malicious intentions.
I don’t say this because I “hate America”, which is too often used as a trite way to divert legitimate criticism of necessary issues.
I don’t say this because I am being “condescending”, and for the same reason above.
I say this because it is the cold, hard truth that few want to discuss.
It is good for any individual to seek the healthiest interests of one’s nation regardless of where one is.
However, it is a known fact that due to a variety of geographic and historical factors that have afforded the USA a unique advantage over much of the world for a long time in combination with the multiplicity of heretics that founded and filled the US in her early days, the USA has developed a combination of unique cultural attitudes and outlooks. She has a strong sense of patriotism and an sense of exceptional duty that leads her to indulge in fantasies of heroism approaching messianism. She also entertains fantasies of “foreign invasion” and fighting off said invaders in a similar “man against the world”, heroic fashion. America is also very blessed as far as food, and as she has an abundance of wealth and luxury and her people, especially in modern times, have seldom known hunger, many are overweight.
The result of this is articulated above- a bunch of fat guys with a patriot complex playing soldier with real guns.
People who are living in a fantasy of any kind can be dangerous because when they think, they are not doing so with a root in reality, but in their projection of reality. It does not matter what the fantasy is, because if it does not accord with the facts around them, they can do things that are dangerous. This only becomes multiplied when stress, cultural pressure, and high-powered weapons are added. It is the same reason why drinking and driving is forbidden- the two alone are not bad, but together they form a potentially fatal combination for either the individual or those around him.
If this “migrant caravan” reaches the US border, will these militia groups suddenly (and illegally) start shooting at them, especially if somebody throws a rock?
Will these militias start trying to “detain” people, and then may try to “arrest” or even shoot them if they feel the person “acts up?”
Will these militias shoot an American citizen, mistaking them for an “illegal?”
Will these militias accidentally shoot people who are not involved in this caravan, but are people living in the cities going about their daily business?
These are but a few of the concerns that such militias raise, but also demonstrate the dangers of promoting nationalism among a people, because emotion becomes intertwined with what are already politically or socially tense scenarios, and as history demonstrates, men too often act with their feelings and not their brains. This is not unique to any culture, but is common to all.
The people coming from Central America are being presented as a “threat” to the “security” of the USA. While there is much evidence showing that not only are they not a threat (for such “caravans” have been coming for years) and that which is being promoted as a threat is being done so for political gain, if a threat truly exists there is the US Border Patrol and if it is really bad, the US army.
Would a bunch of poor people be able to stop the might of the US Army? Absolutely not. It would be similar to a toddler trying to push a car out of the way. It is not going to happen.
As I have emphasized before, the reason why such people would be able to “invade America” is if they were allowed to, which would be consistent with the point I have previously emphasized, which is that this “migrant crisis” is allowed for political reasons to promote nationalism and the expansion of government power at the expense of the citizens. It is not about either the “migrants” or the “citizens,” as to those with an insatiable desire for control care about neither and will manipulate and use both in so far as they believe there is an advantage in doing so.
The last thing that anybody needs is a bunch of guys with political delusions, be the on the left or the right. On the right, there are the Fox News-watching, militia-playing wannabe soldiers who think they are going to “defend America” from the “migrant invaders.” On the left, however, there are the same types, except they are the wannabe anarchist types who think they are “fighting the system” and “protecting our brothers against racists.” Like the right wing, they also have guns and are more than willing to use them:
One week after two men were stabbed to death while defending two girls from a racist and Islamophobic diatribe on a commuter train, Portland, Oregon, is bracing for more violence. On Sunday, over the mayor’s objection, a right-wing group will hold a pro-Trump “free speech rally,” while anti-fascist activists are preparing to protest the gathering.
It’s a pattern that has played out across the country since the election: Pro-Trump events from Pikeville, Kentucky, to Berkeley, California, attract white nationalists, neo-Nazis, and Klansmen along with other provocateurs from the so-called “alt-right.” And, predictably, “antifa” counterprotesters mask up to oppose them—often physically.
Yet joining up with the well-established networks of antifascists and anarchists is a new generation of militant organizers. In Portland, Rose City Antifa’s coalition at this weekend’s pro-Trump rally will include the local chapter of Redneck Revolt, a national network whose outreach has targeted right-wing militia members.
Redneck Revolt is just one among a handful of left-wing groups that have pledged to resist emboldened white supremacists and right-wing extremists through “direct action” that sometimes goes beyond nonviolent protest—including picking up arms. Some see themselves as the heirs of ’60s radicals like the Black Panthers, while others look to the antifa movement for inspiration. (source, source)
You can read the full story above. They are no different from the right wing groups because, as I have noted, there are no fundamental differences between left and right in the USA as far as philosophy is concerned, other that if the “left” is “degenerate,” the “right” is “degenerate-lite”.
Perhaps in this case, people would be better off paying attention to their own affairs and ignoring the calls to violence by those who seek blood for their own profit.
***LYRICS NOT SAFE FOR WORK OR CHILDREN, but it illustrates a larger point***