Simon Romero

“I’d load up my guns for the fighting if we could just secede and join Texas,” said Moorhead from Loco Hills, population about 125. “They love the money from our oil up in Santa Fe. But they treat us like dirt.”

Moorhead, 42, may sound more extreme than most. But go just about anywhere in southeastern New Mexico, the deeply conservative oil-rich region known as “Little Texas,” and people are seething over a political shift to the left in the state capital.

A frenetic oil boom is laying bare this divide, while suddenly lifting one of the poorest states in the country into the top ranks of global oil producers. Normally that might be cause for celebration, but Democrats now in power in New Mexico are coming under fire on two fronts: from oil patch conservatives, for pushing to hike oil royalties and spend the windfall on progressive causes; and from environmentalists on the left, for allowing the oil boom to materialize in the first place.

After Democrats swept elections in New Mexico in 2018, they quickly enacted a “mini Green New Deal” requiring that by 2045, all electricity in the state must come from renewable energy. Going further, Democrats sought to assert greater control over the oil industry with proposed legislation to hike oil royalties and ban hydraulic fracturing.

Those bills unleashed fury in southeastern New Mexico before stalling in the state Legislature, and revealed an intensifying source of tension: Republican-controlled areas of the state produce the state’s oil wealth, while Democrats decide how to spend it.

New Mexico recently surpassed Alaska, Oklahoma and California in oil production, and is now the third-largest oil-producing state. Skyrocketing production is bolstering the state’s traditionally fragile finances, generating a projected budget surplus of $1.3 billion for 2019.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, is moving fast to use the bonanza. New Mexico increased spending this year on early childhood programs, raised teacher salaries and, in one of the boldest state-led efforts to expand access to higher education, unveiled a plan to use surging oil income to make tuition free at public universities.

Conservatives in southeastern New Mexico have reacted with a mixture of resentment and alarm over such plans. Some question why the rest of the state should benefit from their work when their own roads and schools need funds. Mark Veteto, an oilman who is among New Mexico’s largest political donors, argued that a fracking ban could have a draconian impact.

“I’m hearing from friends in Texas, ‘What the hell is going on in New Mexico?’” said Veteto, a Republican. “We’re a pillar of the economy, we’re thriving, so it’s hard to understand why they’re going after us.”

At the same time, Lujan Grisham is facing an outcry from progressives about boosting production of fossil fuels that contribute to global warming.

“New Mexico simply needs to keep all of its oil in the ground,” said Mariel Nanasi, executive director of New Energy Economy, a Santa Fe group promoting clean energy sources. Taking aim at the plan to use oil revenues to cover university tuition, she asked, “Why does a college degree frankly matter if someone is graduating into a world of climate disaster?”

With moderate Democrats now largely in control, the multifaceted debate reflects the rearrangement of political power in what has traditionally been a swing state. The 2004 election marked the last time a Republican presidential candidate carried the state. In 2018, Democrats won every statewide office and flipped the congressional seat representing southeastern New Mexico.

Stephanie Garcia Richard, a Democrat elected last year as state land commissioner, acknowledged that people in southeastern New Mexico were chafing at her efforts to tighten control over the oil industry.

“People saw a forked tail and horns coming out of my head and they thought, ‘Garcia Richard gets elected and the entire industry dies,’” said the commissioner, a teacher who is the first woman and the first Latina in the post.

“We’re holding people’s feet to the fire, absolutely we are,” she said, emphasizing that her proposal to raise oil royalties to 25%, hotly contested by oil producers, would only match the rate in Texas. “But this state matters to me.”

New Mexico’s oil industry is thriving, she said, with production forecast to reach the milestone of 1 million barrels per day later this year.

That projected surge has some environmental leaders in the state fuming. The mini Green New Deal, they say, shifts electricity production away from fossil fuels — mainly coal — but does nothing to scale back the oil production that also contributes to climate change.

Others on the left eye the boom from another angle, saying the oil windfall is a sliver of what it should be in relation to New Mexico’s new significance in global oil markets.

After doubling output in the past two years to 900,000 barrels a day, New Mexico now produces more oil than OPEC members Ecuador, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon combined. If the state is to develop clean energy sources while also fighting poverty, political leaders need to generate even more revenues from oil, said Jon Goldstein, a former state energy secretary.

“So much of the profit from this boom is flowing to Houston or London when it should remain in New Mexico,” said Goldstein, now with the Environmental Defense Fund.

Hobbs, a city in the heart of oil country that straddles the state line with Texas, has daily flights to Houston but none to any cities in New Mexico. Here, it is apparent that at least some of the oil bounty stayed in the state.

A futuristic $63.5 million recreational complex features a three-story jungle gym, an indoor lacrosse field and a water park with slides, geysers, rain clouds and a lazy river.

Well-kept walking trails and bike paths traverse the city of 38,000. Miguel Corral, 33, a Mexican immigrant with an oil field trucking business, opened a new rodeo arena this year featuring everything from roping competitions to boxing matches and country western bands.

Vehicles with Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma license plates ply the roads, reflecting an influx of out-of-state job seekers. With recent high school graduates earning more than $100,000 a year in the oil fields, some in Hobbs bemoan the rising cost of living.

Jazmine Brantley, 33, an economics professor from Atlanta who lived in Hobbs briefly in 2016, said she was stunned when she moved back in August. Rent for a one-bedroom apartment in her complex had surged from $735 a month to $1,100.

“It used to be just beat-up trucks in the parking lot,” Brantley said. “Now it’s brand-new Jeeps, BMWs, Cadillac Escalades.”

Dean Johnson, 60, who makes cowboy boots by hand out of caribou, shark and ostrich, said he was able to sell each pair for $1,450 and up — and some customers have to wait two years.

“We’re humming along, doing good for ourselves and making a load of money for New Mexico,” Johnson said. “But we know the rest of the state would get rid of us if they could.”

Some tension involves historical cultural differences. Elsewhere in New Mexico, people often disdain any association with Texas, sentiment stretching back at least to a disastrous attempt by the pro-slavery Republic of Texas to invade New Mexico in the 1840s.

In much of New Mexico, Hispanic history and culture, along with the Spanish language enduring in the state for centuries, are celebrated. Lujan Grisham, a Hispanic Democrat, won the governor’s race in a landslide last year against Steve Pearce, an Anglo Republican from Hobbs.

In southeastern New Mexico, politics remain largely dominated by Anglos — even though Latinos account for nearly 60% of the population of Lea County, which includes Hobbs. When the only Latino on the county commission this year proposed a $1,500 bonus to county employees who pass a Spanish proficiency test, the commission, made up entirely of Republicans, rejected the proposal.

Residents in the southeastern part of the state openly express admiration for Texas’ culture and economic mettle. Many speak with an accent closer to that of Abilene than Albuquerque.

“We’re pretty far from Santa Fe out here,” said Bob Reid, chief executive of the JF Maddox Foundation, a philanthropic group started by a longtime utility magnate in Hobbs that is among New Mexico’s largest private foundations. “Even our liberals tend to be a little more conservative.”

West of Hobbs, on a road cutting through fracking sites and gas flares lighting up the night sky, lies the epicenter of the oil boom: the town of Carlsbad.

Traffic congestion, housing capacity, law enforcement shortages — all are posing problems in a town whose 29,000 residents are increasingly agitated by oil royalties flowing to other parts of New Mexico.

Allen Davis, the county manager of Eddy County, said officials had discussed printing T-shirts for distribution in the state proclaiming, “You’re Fracking Welcome.”

“Man camps” are popping up all over town, providing temporary housing for the overwhelmingly male workforce in the oil fields. At one such camp, occupancy in October was at 100%, with nearly 400 people staying in prefabricated buildings, according to the manager, Rocío Delgado.

Delgado said she had tried, and sometimes failed, to keep the rowdiness down.

“Guys were dressing up prostitutes in work uniforms, trying to sneak them in when they were pulling in with their trucks,” she said. “I cut that out right quick.”

Businesses of all types have such a hard time finding workers that recruiters pitch gigs in the Walmart parking lot. Walmart lost so many employees to better-paying jobs that it poached cleaning ladies from the man camp, Delgado said. The women, who came in from El Paso, now work as cashiers, and Walmart covers their rent at the camp.

Davis, a former executive for the oil giant Chevron who moved from Australia, said breakneck growth in Carlsbad and Hobbs could soon produce a metropolitan region similar in size to Midland-Odessa in West Texas, which have a combined population of more than a quarter of a million people.

“What they did in 50 years, we’ve got to do in five,” he said.

At the No Whiner Diner, a sign in the parking lot seemed to be chiding the state for Carlsbad’s colossal traffic jams: “Congestion not just in your head,” it said.

The other side proclaimed, “Santa Fe taketh more than giveth.”

This article originally appeared in

New Mexico's 'Little Texas' Booms, Igniting Battles Over Oil Windfall

LOCO HILLS, N.M. — At the diner she manages in the heart of New Mexico’s oil country, Joni Moorhead talks to roughnecks all day long about potholed roads, cramped lodging camps, soaring rents — and state politics.

Customs and Border Protection authorities on Wednesday allowed a group of journalists on a brief, highly controlled tour of the border station in Clint, a farming town near El Paso, hitting back at reports of filthy and abusive conditions for the children detained inside.

Agents claimed that they were supplying soap and toothbrushes for the children, pointing to shelves with those items in a supply room. (Other shelves held lice repellent shampoo and medical gloves.) They claimed that children held in Clint were not going hungry, pointing to boxes of instant noodles and oatmeal piled near a processing room.

Still, the agents did not allow the journalists inside any of the cells and prohibited any conversations with the detained children, citing government policies. The agency also barred reporters from bringing cameras or phones inside, threatening to expel anyone who did.

“Don’t talk to her,” one agent said when a reporter saw one girl, who appeared to be 10 or 11 years old, crying uncontrollably while speaking in Spanish with a relative on a phone in a processing room. “If you ask her anything you’ll be thrown out,” the agent warned.

The facility in Clint is where Customs and Border Protection agents generally take unaccompanied children who are arrested after crossing the border in the agency’s El Paso sector, which stretches across southern New Mexico and part of West Texas.

As outrage spread in recent days over the reports about the conditions at Clint, John Sanders, the acting commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, said he would step down in early July. Authorities also took 249 children housed at Clint to other facilities to relieve overcrowding, but then moved more than 100 children back into the station that had been emptied just days earlier.

Aaron Hull, the chief patrol agent of the El Paso sector, said his officials were dealing with understaffing, a lack of funding and an increase in migration from Central America.

“When we catch more aliens than we can turn over, they tend to build up here in the station,” Hull said.

Other agents acknowledged that the relatively clean and uncrowded conditions at the facility were much different than in recent weeks, when hundreds of children filled the facility. Matthew Harris, the official in charge of the Clint facility, said that it had been built in 2012 to temporarily detain about 100 people.

But in recent months, Harris said, the facility contained more than 700 children at times. The station was designed to detain children for eight to 12 hours, but he said that some children were being held as long as 30 days.

A 1-year-old was currently being housed at Clint with the mother, who is younger than 18, Harris said. He added that the youngest infant who had been held at the station was just 15 days old, detained for a week along with the child’s mother.

Altogether, the border station in Clint looked more like a jail or a makeshift camp than a juvenile detention center. In a processing area with nine cells, children peered through windows at the gun-carrying agents milling about.

No books, crayons or even pieces of paper could be seen in the cells; no artwork adorned the walls as it does in shelter facilities where migrant children are held for lengthy periods.

In a place where boys were being held, a caged area that once functioned as the station’s sally port, a television played “Shrek”; a sign on the wall listed indigenous languages spoken by some of the detained children: K’iche’, Poqomam, Garifuna.

Agents shuffled the journalists through a limited portion of the facility, and pointed to portable toilets and a basketball hoop set up outside on a gravel lot. The agents did not provide access to outside areas where children have been held.

In a change from previous months, monitors dressed in blue uniforms hired by an outside contractor could be seen supervising some of the children. Harris, the official in charge of Clint, said that Wednesday, the day of the tour for journalists, was also the monitors’ first day on the job.

Lawyers who had raised a public alarm after being given access to the station recently had reported that children as young as 8 were caring for infants; they said they saw toddlers with no diapers. But Harris said that the lawyers had not been allowed to see parts of the facility open to journalists Wednesday, but were only allowed to speak with children in a conference room.

The lawyers whose accounts prompted the backlash against conditions in Clint filed an emergency motion Wednesday night seeking immediate inspections of all of the Border Patrol’s facilities in the El Paso and Rio Grande Valley regions of Texas.

The motion, filed as part of a federal court settlement that set the standard for the care of detained migrant children, also asks that the Border Patrol be held in contempt for their “flagrant and persistent violations” of those rules.

Earlier in the week, Customs and Border Protection officials had tried to cast doubt on the lawyers’ declarations, with one official who spoke under the condition of anonymity telling journalists in a phone call, “I personally don’t believe those allegations.”

But in their motion, the lawyers submitted 80 declarations from the children interviewed in Clint and in a previous inspection of another facility in the El Paso region, stating that “children are wearing clothing stained with vomit or breast milk,” and that “babies are being kept in these freezing cold conditions, and some of them have only a diaper and a T-shirt to wear.”

Dr. Dolly Lucio Sevier, a physician who accompanied the lawyers on their visit, likened the conditions to “torture facilities.”

The lawyers requested an immediate ruling from Judge Dolly Gee of the Central District of California. Their accounts were also shored up Thursday in a draft report from the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general obtained by BuzzFeed News in which investigators detail many of the same health and safety issues raised by the lawyers who visited Clint.

Asked about the range of poor conditions to which children were subjected under his watch, Hull said that some of the claims of wrongdoing were “hurtful.” “We’ve explained time and time again that we need the resources to do the job,” Hull said.

The Republican-held Senate on Wednesday approved $4.6 billion in funding for emergency humanitarian aid along the border with Mexico, rejecting House legislation approved a day earlier that set stronger conditions for how the money can be spent.

The action set up another stalemate over border spending, and continuing uncertainty over how agents on the ground are able to handle the detained children in their care.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/26/us/migrant-children-border-clint-texas.html" id="c0d1d25a-6522-32ca-a248-7801ef1e2343">The New York Times</a>.

'Don't talk to her': A glimpse inside a troubled border station housing migrant children

CLINT, Texas — Children as young as 3 pressed their faces against the windows of one crowded cell holding nearly 20 migrant girls, some sprawled on the floor. Boys gazed through the fencing of a containment zone exposed to the 101-degree heat.

A group that pushes for stricter border control is spending $6 million to construct less than a mile of border fencing on private land in southern New Mexico. Their hope is for the project to help limit the flow of migrant families trying to enter the United States around El Paso, Texas.

“It really was ridiculous how easy it was to get around the El Paso wall until we built this,” said Kris Kobach, who is known for his hard-line stance on immigration and is on the advisory board of the group, We Build the Wall, which collects donations to finance a barrier on the southern border.

Kobach unveiled the fencing on Memorial Day on land in Sunland Park, New Mexico, owned by the American Eagle Brick Co. He said that the company hired to build the wall, Fisher Industries of North Dakota, hoped to complete the project in a few days.

The wall’s effectiveness and legality, though, are in doubt. The stretch of wall could simply push migrant families toward crossings in more remote areas, as other portions of border fencing have done.

Still, the project has already come under criticism from elected leaders in New Mexico and Texas who see it as a publicity ploy, while others point to the ties between We Build the Wall and a right-wing militia whose leader is in jail on weapons charges.

Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-Texas, focused scrutiny on Kobach, the former Kansas secretary of state who ran unsuccessfully for governor last year, and Steve Bannon, a former adviser to Trump who is chairman of We Build the Wall’s advisory board.

“It’s deeply disturbing when outsiders, like Kris Kobach and Steve Bannon, come in and use our community and people as a backdrop to further their racist agenda,” Escobar said in a statement.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico, also a Democrat, said: “To act as though throwing up a small section of wall on private land does anything to effectively secure our southern border from human and drug trafficking or address the humanitarian needs of the asylum-seekers and local communities receiving them — that’s nonsense.”

The mayor of Sunland Park, Javier Perea, said the city issued a cease-and-desist order Tuesday after determining that the builders had failed to obtain the required permits for the project.

“The construction of the wall at this point is in violation of city ordinances,” Perea said, saying that a survey had not been filed and that the fencing exceeded the maximum allowed height of 6 feet.

Dustin Stockman, a vice president of We Build the Wall, said that the project was on “strong legal footing” and would be completed.

We Build the Wall was started in December as a GoFundMe online fundraising campaign by Brian Kolfage, a disabled Air Force veteran. The organization said it hoped to raise $1 billion. So far, it has collected $20 million from private donors.

Jeff Allen, a co-owner of the company on whose land the wall is going up, told The El Paso Times why he favored the project. “We have been burglarized by illegals,” he said. “We have drug traffickers coming through here, and anyone who is against this is against America.”

The desert near Sunland Park has been the site of militia activity. A group called the United Constitutional Patriots uploaded video to social media showing its members detaining migrant families.

We Build the Wall used video recorded by the militia in its fundraising pitches, according to a report by Phoenix New Times.

While Kobach claimed Tuesday that We Build the Wall was not tied to the militia, Jim Benvie, the spokesman for the militia, said that he had dealt with Kolfage, the founder of We Build the Wall, and expressed delight with the project.

“This is our stomping ground,” Benvie said about the area where the wall was being built. He added that the group considered the project a victory and planned to patrol in other areas in Texas, Arizona or New Mexico.

Trump has encountered one obstacle after another in his quest to build a wall along the entire border. After Congress refused to allocate money for the project, a federal judge in California granted an injunction this month preventing the Trump administration from redirecting funds for the wall using a national emergency declaration.

Even before this flare-up of militia and construction activity, residents along the border have long been grappling with existing fenced sections. Researchers say that the expansion of border fencing during the Bush administration pushed migrants toward crossing in more remote territory, resulting in hundreds of deaths from exposure to extreme desert heat.

Kobach, who came under scrutiny this month for his list of conditions, including an on-call jet, if he were to become the Trump administration’s immigration czar, disputed assertions that this new portion of wall would place migrant families at risk.

“I don’t think this fence endangers anyone’s life,” Kobach said, while claiming that migrants would not seek to cross the border at the point where the new portion of wall ends, near a cliff. “I doubt that they’re going to try to climb over an 18-foot bollard wall,” he said.

Still, as debate unfolds about the wall, the desert is claiming lives. In one grim episode this month, a 26-year-old Mexican man was found dead near another portion of border wall in southern New Mexico. Investigators are looking into whether he fell to his death while trying to scale the wall.

This article originally appeared in <a id="9c2430b1-7f6b-3e67-a485-ead77a8f6aa4" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/28/us/border-wall-private-new-mexico.html">The New York Times</a>.

Border Wall on Private Land in New Mexico Fuels Backlash

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Congress has so far thwarted President Donald Trump’s plan to build a wall along the border with Mexico. But that hasn’t stopped some supporters from finding a way to build their own barrier.

Border wall on private land in New Mexico fuels backlash

“It’s my God-given right to be here,” said one balaclava-clad militia member who gave his name only as Viper. Chafing at the hostile reactions to the militia’s actions, he said that he was an Army veteran and that he expected his group, if pushed out, to set up camp in another location along the border.

“The guys in Washington say one thing about not wanting us on the ground, but no one from the Border Patrol here has ever told me they don’t want our help,” he said, squinting under the midday sun. “We’re here to protect Americans from the illegals violating our sovereignty.”

The militia’s encampment Tuesday was little more than a trailer and a few pickup trucks next to a newly installed “No Trespassing” sign. It appeared to reflect the impasse these armed vigilantes now find themselves in: under the magnifying glass of the FBI, cut off from funding, defending their actions to the public and torn asunder by the arrest of their leader, a resident of northwest New Mexico and a three-time felon who went by the alias Johnny Horton Jr. but whose real name is Larry Hopkins.

Tempers were on edge in the camp, which is next to railroad tracks and a dusty road where the existing wall on the border comes to an abrupt end. That is where militia members have been filming their activities, and where, on several occasions, they have confronted and detained groups of migrants who have crossed the border into the United States.

These migrants, like others who have crossed the border in recent months, have largely been Central Americans. In sharp contrast to previous inflows of migrants, most of these new arrivals routinely seek to surrender to Border Patrol agents to legally request asylum.

Still, the militiamen and those who support them have seen their work as necessary.

Armando Gonzalez, 52, said he drove to Sunland Park, which sits on New Mexico’s borders with Mexico and Texas, from his home in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to lend a hand to the United Constitutional Patriots. He said he believed that the news media had distorted the group's work and the reality of life along the border.

“If you ask me, this is all about politics,” said Gonzalez, adding that he was a disabled Army veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder. “The Democrats want illegal immigration because that means more votes for them.”

“But I took an oath to protect my country and what’s happening on the border is an invasion threatening our people,” said Gonzalez, who is planning to sleep in his 2001 Chevrolet Suburban. “These men are patriots and I'm proud to stand alongside them.”

Gonzalez, who was carrying a 9-millimeter handgun in a holster strapped to his belt, said he considered himself part of the militia. But the two other men at the spartan camp said they didn't think Gonzalez was part of their group.

“He just showed up today,” said the man called Viper.

At one point Tuesday, there were more reporters milling about the camp than militiamen. Some of the journalists broadcast in Spanish to reach viewers on both sides of the border.

Judith Sierra, the owner of Tortilleria Sierra in Sunland Park, chuckled at the thought of armed men traveling to the border to chase after women and children. It’s not uncommon for migrants to pass through her property, she said, lately in large groups.

“We offer them water or tortillas,” she said, adding that the Border Patrol is never far behind.

“Even with a fence or whatever else, it’s not going to stop people,” said Sierra, who was attending to a steady stream of customers in a black apron dusted with flour. “They’ll come over or under, somehow, they’ll find a way to cross.”

Meanwhile, the authorities in Sunland Park, whose population of about 15,600 is more than 90 percent Latino, have made it clear that the men in the desert are testing their patience.

The Sunland Park Police Department is evicting the group, telling its members that they want them gone from the camp site by the end of the week. Union Pacific, which operates the railroad near the militia's camp, warned the armed men that they were trespassing to reach their camp.

“These outsiders talk about an invasion when they are the ones invading our peace and quiet,” said Jesus Hernandez, 70, who lives in Sunland Park and works in nearby El Paso, Texas, shining shoes. “I have some advice for them: Get a job and leave us alone."

What's next for the United Constitutional Patriots? Their ranks, while never numerous, seem to be thinning. Hopkins is in jail on a felony weapons charge and Jim Benvie, the group's self-described spokesman, was away from the camp Tuesday.

An older militia member known as "Pops" used vulgar language when a reporter asked him a question, making it clear that he doesn't care for journalists. He also warned against trying to take his picture, telling reporters he didn't want publicity.

Still, officials are increasing scrutiny of the group. Three Democratic members of Congress — Deb Haaland and Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico and Veronica Escobar of Texas — wrote to FBI Director Christopher Wray, requesting an investigation of the United Constitutional Patriots.

“The right to stop and detain should remain reserved for law enforcement,” they said in the letter. “As a nation, we must end this xenophobic behavior.”

Elsewhere in Sunland Park, residents are wondering when the militia will leave. Claudio Alvarado, 69, a retired foreman with the Texas Gas Co., was on a morning walk through his neighborhood with his two young grandchildren.

Alvarado said that he had lived in the town since he was 12 and that his son-in-law had worked as a Border Patrol agent for a decade. Alvarado made it clear that he doesn’t like the idea of militia members patrolling the border.

“It makes me angry,” Alvarado said, “because that’s not their job.”

This article originally appeared in <a id="780994ed-db12-3165-a6e4-16e00b014da5" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/23/us/new-mexico-militia-border.html">The New York Times</a>.

Militia Defiant in New Mexico: 'It's My God-Given Right to Be Here'

SUNLAND PARK, N.M. — Their commander is in jail. The authorities are giving them until Friday to clear out and leave. But the United Constitutional Patriots, the right-wing militia under scrutiny over detaining migrant families at the border with Mexico, is digging in.

Militia defiant in New Mexico: 'It's my God-given right to be here'

Oregon police arrested him in 2006 on charges of impersonating a police officer and a felony weapons offense. They had found him showing guns to teenagers in a gas-station parking lot while wearing a police-style uniform and a badge emblazoned with the words “Special Agent.”

Hopkins pleaded guilty in 1996 in Michigan to felony possession of a loaded firearm and was sentenced to 16 months to two years in prison. Officials in South Dakota indicted Hopkins in 2009 on charges of failure to pay child support.

Hopkins finally came under the scrutiny of federal authorities in 2017, after the FBI received reports that his group was “training” to assassinate Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and George Soros, according to court documents unsealed Monday.

Hopkins, 69, appeared in U.S. District Court on Monday after his arrest over the weekend on yet another charge: being a felon in possession of firearms and ammunition.

The arrest followed the posting online of videos by Hopkins’ group, the United Constitutional Patriots, showing men in camouflage detaining hundreds of migrants in the desert near Sunland Park, New Mexico, and then handing the migrants over to Border Patrol.

In an affidavit, David S. Gabriel, an FBI special agent, said the bureau was made aware of the activities of Hopkins after receiving reports in October 2017 of “alleged militia extremist activity” in northwestern New Mexico.

Gabriel said two FBI agents went to a trailer park in Flora Vista, New Mexico, where Hopkins was living. The agents entered the home and saw about 10 firearms in plain view.

The court affidavit gave few details about the report the FBI received stating that the United Constitutional Patriots “were training to assassinate George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama because of these individuals’ support of Antifa.” The term Antifa refers to left-wing activists who have clashed with right-wing groups in cities across the country.

Hopkins’ lawyer, Kelly O’Connell, disputed the reports about assassination plans.

O’Connell said Hopkins planned to plead not guilty to the latest charge.

This article originally appeared in <a id="2450d6ce-ad08-31e4-aedb-f690a9387ea3" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/22/us/militia-border-new-mexico.html">The New York Times</a>.

FBI was told that militia in New Mexico planned to kill Obama and Clinton

LAS CRUCES, N.M. — Before the FBI arrested Larry Hopkins, the leader of the right-wing militia that detained migrant families in the New Mexico desert, he’d had so many run-ins with the law that his police record stretched across much of the United States.

“Hopkins stated that he worked for the federal government directly under George Bush,” Officer Jack Daniel of the sheriff’s office in Klamath County, Oregon, wrote in his report. Hopkins, the report said, claimed variously to be investigating a meth lab, hunting fugitives and undertaking unspecified “operations” in Afghanistan.

Officials in South Dakota indicted Hopkins in 2009 on charges of failure to pay child support. Long before then, Hopkins pleaded guilty in 1996 in Michigan to felony possession of a loaded firearm and was sentenced to 16 months to two years in prison.

Hopkins finally came under the scrutiny of federal authorities in 2017, after the FBI received reports that his group was “training” to assassinate Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and George Soros, according to documents unsealed Monday in federal court.

Hopkins, 69, appeared in U.S. District Court on Monday after his arrest over the weekend on yet another charge, this time of being a felon in possession of firearms and ammunition.

The arrest followed the posting online of a series of videos by Hopkins’ group, which calls itself the United Constitutional Patriots, showing men in camouflage circling and detaining hundreds of migrants in the desert near Sunland Park, New Mexico, and then handing the migrants over to Border Patrol.

The heavily armed militia’s actions have ignited debate over whether its members broke kidnapping laws and effectively acted as a paramilitary force supporting the Border Patrol. Militia members argue that they were assisting authorities to patrol remote areas of the border and carrying out “verbal citizen’s arrests.”

Gabriel said that the following month, two FBI agents went to a trailer park in Flora Vista, New Mexico, where Hopkins was living at the time. With Hopkins’ consent, the agents entered the home and saw about 10 firearms in plain view, in what Hopkins referred to as his office.

Hopkins, who has also used the name Johnny Horton Jr., told the agents that the guns belonged to Fay Sanders Murphy, whom he described to agents as his common-law wife, according to the affidavit. The agents collected at least nine firearms from the home as evidence, including a 12-gauge shotgun and various handguns.

The FBI also did not specify why agents waited to arrest Hopkins after finding his home awash in guns in 2017. At that time, agents concluded that his possession of the weapons was illegal because he had a previous felony conviction. Separately, a probation officer in Oregon had already asked in 2007 for a warrant for Hopkins’ arrest after he failed to report to probation meetings.

Hopkins’ lawyer, Kelly O’Connell, disputed the reports about assassination plans. “My client told me that is not true,” O’Connell said.

He also questioned the timing of the arrest. “My question is, why now?” O’Connell said. He suggested that pressure from prominent Democrats in New Mexico may have prompted the FBI to take action.

After the 2017 search of Hopkins’ residence in New Mexico, FBI agents contacted the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and determined that none of the firearms collected from the home was manufactured in New Mexico, opening the door to possible additional charges of transporting the weapons in interstate commerce, a federal offense.

O’Connell, who was the host of a conservative radio talk show program in New Mexico until 2017, declined to say who was paying Hopkins’ legal fees.

Hopkins could face up to 10 years in prison if he is found guilty of the new charge. He told the judge Monday that he suffers from various medical problems and gave his age as 70, though court records showed he was 69.

“I’m not a militia specialist,” O’Connell said when asked about the motives of Hopkins and other members of the armed group. He added, “They believe they are helping to enforce the laws of America on immigration.”

Jim Benvie, a spokesman for the United Constitutional Patriots, declined to talk Monday about Hopkins’ legal problems or other actions by the group. But he insisted that the group planned to remain camped near the border in Sunland Park.

“We’re not leaving,” Benvie said.

Still, pressure is building on the group from various directions. Both PayPal and GoFundMe banned accounts for the group, potentially making it harder for the militia to receive donations. And the rail transportation company Union Pacific said it believed that the group was camped on land adjacent to its property in southern New Mexico.

“They have trespassed on our property to access this camp,” said a Union Pacific spokesman, Tim McMahan. “While we cannot make them move their camp, we have asked them to not trespass on our property.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/22/us/militia-border-new-mexico.html" id="2450d6ce-ad08-31e4-aedb-f690a9387ea3">The New York Times</a>.

FBI Was Told That Militia in New Mexico Planned to Kill Obama and Clinton

Larry Mitchell Hopkins, 69, appeared in U.S. District Court on Monday after his arrest over the weekend on a charge of being a felon in possession of firearms and ammunition.

The arrest followed a series of videos posted by Hopkins’ group, which calls itself the United Constitutional Patriots, showing men in camouflage circling and detaining hundreds of migrants in the desert near Sunland Park, New Mexico, and then handing the migrants over to Border Patrol.

In an affidavit, David S. Gabriel, an FBI special agent, said the bureau was made aware of Hopkins’ activities after receiving reports in October 2017 of “alleged militia extremist activity” in northwestern New Mexico.

Gabriel said that the following month, two FBI agents went to a trailer park in Flora Vista, New Mexico, where Hopkins was living at the time. With Hopkins’ consent, the agents entered the home and saw about 10 firearms in plain view.

Hopkins told the agents the guns belonged to Fay Sanders Murphy, whom he described as his common-law wife, according to the affidavit. The agents collected at least nine firearms from the home as evidence.

The court affidavit gave few details about the report the FBI received stating the United Constitutional Patriots “were training to assassinate George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama because of these individuals’ support of Antifa.” The term Antifa refers to left-wing activists who have clashed with right-wing groups in cities across the country.

He also questioned the timing of the arrest. “My question is, why now?” O’Connell said, noting the weapons were found in Hopkins’ home in 2017. He suggested that pressure from prominent Democrats in New Mexico may have prompted the FBI to take action.

LAS CRUCES, N.M. — The imprisoned leader of a right-wing militia that detained migrant families in New Mexico first came under the scrutiny of federal authorities in 2017, after the FBI received reports that his group was “training” to assassinate Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and George Soros, according to documents unsealed Monday in federal court.

The militia leader, Larry Mitchell Hopkins, 69, appeared in U.S. District Court on Monday after his arrest over the weekend on a charge of being a felon in possession of firearms and ammunition.

He also questioned the timing of the arrest. “My question is, why now?” O’Connell said, noting that the weapons were found in his home in 2017. He suggested that pressure from prominent Democrats in New Mexico may have prompted the FBI to take action.

Hopkins has faced weapons-related charges before, according to court documents. He was convicted of two felonies in Oregon in 2006: criminal impersonation of a peace officer and felony possession of a firearm. And he pleaded guilty in 1996 in Michigan to possession of a loaded firearm, and was sentenced to 16 months to two years in prison.

Hector Balderas, New Mexico’s attorney general, said federal agents had arrested the leader, Larry Mitchell Hopkins, who had been operating under the alias Johnny Horton Jr. Balderas said in a statement that Hopkins was arrested on charges of firearms possession by a felon.

“This is a dangerous felon who should not have weapons around children and families,” Balderas said. “Today’s arrest by the FBI indicates clearly that the rule of law should be in the hands of trained law enforcement officials, not armed vigilantes.”

The firearms charge against Hopkins is relatively minor. But it is likely the start of a deeper investigation into his activities and those of the militia, and opens the way for the authorities to bring more serious charges like kidnapping and impersonating a police officer or an employee of the United States.

Hopkins’ arrest comes as tensions rise over ultraconservative paramilitary groups operating along the southwestern border. Professed militias have a long history of targeting immigrants from Latin America, tracing back to the Ku Klux Klan’s creation of its own border patrol in the 1970s. Record numbers of Central American migrants apprehended by federal authorities in recent months have been accompanied by a new surge in militia activity on the border.

The organization led by Hopkins, the United Constitutional Patriots, recently uploaded videos of armed members detaining children and their parents in a stretch of the New Mexico desert near El Paso, Texas, before handing the migrants over to the Border Patrol.

Political leaders in New Mexico, a state largely controlled by Democrats, responded with fury. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said that any mistreatment of asylum-seekers on the border was “unacceptable.” The state’s two Democratic senators, Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich, said in a statement that the actions of vigilante groups “cannot be tolerated.”

The American Civil Liberties Union denounced the militia’s actions in a letter Thursday, saying the actions amounted to kidnapping by “racist and armed vigilantes.”

Still, such denunciations were far from unanimous in the state. A prominent New Mexico Republican, Gavin Clarkson, a former Trump administration official who is now running for U.S. Senate, met with masked members of the group in March and praised their efforts, according to a video of the encounter uploaded to Facebook.

But Clarkson said Saturday on Twitter that he condemned militia activities. “Masked militiamen are the antithesis of what a free republic looks like,” he said.

Jim Benvie, a spokesman for the militia, did not immediately respond to requests for comment about Hopkins’ arrest.

The FBI said in a statement that the police department of Sunland Park, New Mexico, had assisted with the arrest. Hopkins, 69, is scheduled to appear Monday in U.S. District Court in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Hopkins, whose residence is in Flora Vista in northwest New Mexico, had already come under the scrutiny of groups tracking right-wing militias around the United States. He was convicted in 2006 for impersonating an officer and for felony firearm possession, according to The Daily Beast.

Despite the recent criticism over its operations in New Mexico, the militia led by Hopkins maintains a wide reach on Facebook and YouTube.

Speaking to someone using a voice distorter while wearing a gas mask, Hopkins appeared on a right-wing extremist YouTube channel in November. He claimed to be in touch with President Donald Trump after a chance meeting at a Las Vegas casino.

FBI arrests leader of right-wing militia that detained migrants in new Mexico

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The FBI on Saturday arrested the leader of a right-wing militia that was detaining migrant families at gunpoint near the border in southern New Mexico, as the group faced a torrent of criticism for its tactics.

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

The American Civil Liberties Union denounced the militia’s actions in a letter Thursday that asked New Mexico’s governor and attorney general to investigate the group.

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, declined to specify how many of its members were in Sunland Park, a city in New Mexico about 9 miles west of El Paso, Texas. He said the group included people with military or law enforcement experience.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico said in a statement it was “completely unacceptable” that migrant families “might be menaced or threatened in any way, shape or form when they arrive at our border.”

The video of this week's episode in the New Mexico desert shows Border Patrol agents arriving on the scene at some point after members of the militia had come into contact with the migrants. Before the arrival of the federal agents, a woman narrating the video tells a man who appears to be a militia member “Don't aim the gun” in the direction of the families.

Carlos A. Diaz, a spokesman for Customs and Border Protection declined to discuss the episode or the United Constitutional Patriots, but said the agency “does not endorse private groups or organizations taking enforcement matters into their own hands.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/18/us/new-mexico-militia.html" id="0c943614-7d0c-3c54-a26d-b672559e8515">The New York Times</a>.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — 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.

Simon Romero

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