BRAVO! Militia in New Mexico Detains Asylum Seekers at Gunpoint

A right-wing militia group operating in southern New Mexico has begun stopping groups of migrant families and detaining them at gunpoint before handing them over to Border Patrol agents, raising tension over the tactics of armed vigilantes along the border between the United States and Mexico.

Members of the group, which calls itself the United Constitutional Patriots, filmed several of their actions in recent days, including the detention this week of a group of about 200 migrants who had recently crossed the border near Sunland Park, N.M., with the intention of seeking asylum. They uploaded videos to social media of exhausted looking migrant families, blinking in the darkness in the glare of what appeared to be the militia’s spotlights.

Professed militias have long operated along the border with attempts to curb the flow of undocumented migrants into the United States. But targeting the recent influx of families, who are legally allowed to request asylum and often quickly surrender to Border Patrol agents, is raising tension with human rights activists in this part of the West.

The American Civil Liberties Union denounced the militia’s actions in a letter on Thursday that asked New Mexico’s governor and attorney general to investigate the group. The A.C.L.U. said the militia had no legal authority under New Mexico or federal law to detain or arrest migrants in the United States.

“We cannot allow racist and armed vigilantes to kidnap and detain people seeking asylum,” two lawyers for the A.C.L.U., María Martínez Sánchez and Kirsten Greer Love, said in the letter.

In a statement, Hector Balderas, New Mexico’s attorney general, said: “These individuals should not attempt to exercise authority reserved for law enforcement.”

Jim Benvie, a spokesman for the United Constitutional Patriots, said in a telephone interview that his group had been camped near El Paso for the past two months. Mr. Benvie contended that his group’s actions were legal, comparing the detention of the migrants to “a verbal citizen’s arrest.”

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