The border between the US and Mexico is beginning to notice the victory of Donald Trump. On Tuesday, just two weeks after the elections, a group of armed paramilitaries planted themselves in the humanitarian aid camp for migrants that the Samaritans organization has near where the wall ends in Sásabe, Arizona. The volunteers report to elDiario.es that they suffered intimidation and harassment by the paramilitaries.
After ten thirty in the morning, “four men dressed in camouflage with AR-15 rifles, bulletproof vests and body cameras” appeared, according to Andy Winter, one of the volunteers who met them on Tuesday. “They entered the camp without asking permission, taking photos and recording videos,” he explains. “One of them told me I was a traitor to the United States.” They also took photos of him and his classmate Jane Storey, a retired teacher in her 70s who was also there that day.
An hour after the group walked away, another group of paramilitaries appeared riding quads with military prints. “They forced us to move our vans to get through. They were very angry and threatened us. They called us traitors again,” denounces Winter, who points out how some of the individuals wore the insignia of the paramilitary group Arizona Border Recon.
This is one of the militias that exist in that area, made up of former military personnel and private security workers. “If we hadn’t been at the camp today, it would most likely have been destroyed,” says the volunteer.
The group has been operating on the Arizona border for years in response to the perception of growing insecurity due to the high number of border crossings. Their mission, as they explain, is to guarantee security and pursue cartels that try to traffic drugs and people. The existence of this type of paramilitary groups is also an example of how private citizens are taking matters into their own hands, fueled by the xenophobic rhetoric that Donald Trump has been using all these years. Far-right members such as the Proud Boys have also participated in some of the patrols, at least since 2021.
“All the people seeking asylum are being deported, so they have not had many reasons to come closer”
In May 2023, shortly after Title 42 that Trump approved in the context of the pandemic and that allowed migrants to be expelled without being able to request asylum fell, the activity of this type of militia was reactivated again. During that period, groups of armed private citizens arrested migrants they found crossing the Arizona border with Mexico, according to US media reports. They had also harassed volunteers from humanitarian organizations.
“The last time we saw the militias was around July. They haven’t been here all this time. But after Trump won the election, we expected that sooner or later this would happen,” explains Gail Kocourek, who is also part of Los Samaritans.
“We are going to bring a security expert to our next meeting to explain ways in which we can protect ourselves, because we are not armed, but they are.” [los paramilitares]”, he states. Since Biden approved the executive order in June, Winter explains, “all the people seeking asylum are being deported, so they haven’t had much reason to reach out.”
Kocourek foresees that in the coming months tension will increase in the area, because Trump’s victory at the polls has “emboldened” these groups and their idea that they can take justice into their own hands. The volunteer fears that they will make their work more difficult or steal the water they leave at certain points of the wall for migrants. “They are convinced that we are working with the cartels, which is obviously not true, but that makes them even more aggressive.”
What worries both volunteers the most is the way in which these militias can act with migrants. Winter even fears that once Trump takes office, he will close the border areas and not allow them to continue bringing aid there: “And we will need eyes here to see what is happening.”
Intimidation of volunteers
Los Samaritans is one of the humanitarian aid organizations that is dedicated to traveling the border in this part of Arizona, providing food and water to migrants who cross the wall. It is one of the few points where migrants can find a place to shelter from the high temperatures and get drinking water and food. Once after crossing the wall, there are still kilometers of desert ahead before reaching Tucson, one of the cities closest to the border.
Although volunteers discourage migrants from continuing the journey and recommend that they surrender to the Border Patrol to request asylum, many of them remain determined to continue the route and die along the way. Between 1981 and 2023, at least 4,288 dead migrants were found in the area, according to the Human Borders organization. The area where the bodies have been found covers the entire length of the Arizona desert, even reaching Phoenix, which is 224 kilometers in a straight line from the Sasabe port of entry. However, humanitarian organizations estimate that the figure may be much higher.
Despite carrying out humanitarian work, in the past, some of the volunteers have been persecuted by the same border patrol. Jane Storey, one of the volunteers who encountered the paramilitaries on Tuesday, was arrested in December 2023 for giving water to a migrant child who had crossed. He spent a night in the dungeon. Another volunteer from the NGO No More DeathScott Warren, was charged with three felonies – under the Trump Administration – for helping two migrants who had crossed the wall. Warren, who faced 20 years in prison, ultimately won the trial.
After the last group of paramilitaries left, Winter explains that that same morning another group of men arrived and said one of them belonged to the Border Patrol. “Although later the man told us that he was the vice president of the National Border Patrol Council,” says the volunteer. The NBPC is a border patrol union with about 18,000 members. Last October, its president, Paul Pérez, supported Trump’s candidacy.
The man who appears in the photographs taken by the volunteers and who identified himself as the vice president of the NBPC is Art del Cuato, a well-known face on the FOX network. Last week, del Cuato was interviewed on the show ‘The Ingraham Angle’ to assess Trump’s decision to appoint Thomas D. Homan, a former police officer who during the first Trump Administration was in charge of border management. He is going to do “a fantastic job,” he assured. Homan has been designated as the “border czar” by the president-elect and during the previous Trump administration he was one of the architects of the policy of separating families.
Trump has promised to begin his mass deportation plan from the day he steps foot in the White House. The presence of figures like Art del Cuato collecting information, as Winter explains, is one more sign of how the circle close to the tycoon is already preparing the ground to execute his plan as soon as he takes possession. “They asked us what we were doing, I told them that we only provide food, water and shelter until the Border Patrol can come pick up the people,” he says.
That same night, three women and a child slept in the tent they had set up until the Border Patrol came early to pick them up. “I explained how cold it is here at night and how sometimes the Border Patrol doesn’t pick up people at night,” Winter explains.
In a recent interview with NewsMax, Homan spoke this way about cities refusing to carry out mass deportation plans: “There is a statute under Title 8, United States Code, section 1324, that talks about harboring and hiding an illegal immigrant, knowingly doing so to hide them from ICE. They need to read that statute and become familiar with it. Because if they cross that line, there will be consequences.”
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