Recently, an armed-militia group called United Constitutional Patriots have uploaded videos of them detaining immigrants crossing the border and holding them until the border patrol arrives. These militia groups are taking authorities that they don’t have and are threatening immigrants to stay on the floor (women and children included) so that the border patrols could take them.
The actions of the United Constitutional Patriots are totally wrong in my opinion. This authorities are reserved only for the law enforcement. They are the real authority. Not just of group of “patriotic citizens” who are trying to kick out every immigrant in the country.
I believe that if you are against the immigrants there are ways to report them. You could simply call the cops or something and tell them that you saw a group of immigrants crossing the border. Not pointing at them with guns and not letting them move until the REAL authority arrives.
The American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico sent a letter to the state government denouncing the actions of the armed-group. “Their actions undermine the legitimate efforts of our state’s law enforcement officials to keep New Mexico safe and erode community trust … we cannot allow racist and armed vigilantes to kidnap and detain people seeking asylum.” the letter read.
Democrat Michelle Lujan Grishman and state Attorney General Hector Balderas also gave their opinion against this situation. Lujan Grishman said that it was “completely unacceptable” that migrants “might be menaced or threatened” stated in The New York Times. “It should go without saying that regular citizens have no authority to arrest or detain anyone” she added.
In a statement, Balderas said, “These individuals should not attempt to exercise authority reserved for law enforcement.
I completely agree with Balderas and Lujan Grishman because, there is a reason on why we have border patrols along all the border, we don’t need a group of ordinary citizens to help the law enforcement with their job. They have the adequate training to perform this job.
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In the other hand, a spokesman from the group, named Jim Benvie, was in favor of these actions. The United Constitutional Patriots have been target of local media reports. In an interview with the New York Times, Benvie stated that the group’s actions were legal. He claimed that members of this group had military experience and were well-trained. He also mentioned that they are told not to point there weapons to the migrants.
I believe that even though they have military and law enforcement experience, they should no do this. They are still ordinary US citizens that don’t work for the border patrol. Hence, they should not do the work that others that have the authority would do.
If they want to “capture” migrants really bad, they should just go ask for a job to the border patrols and go through the whole training a normal border patrol would go through. This way they can do what they like to do in a legal way.
Lastly, and spokesman from the CBP said to the Times that their agency does not endorse “private groups or organizations taking enforcement matters into their own hands.”
I totally agree with this CBP officer and I really encourage these groups to stop acting this way and let professionals deal with this problems.
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