Armed Wingnut Militias Amassing Along Texas Border With State Lawmaker's Blessing

For much of the summer, right-wing militiamen have gathered near the Texas-Mexico border, many of them claiming that they are there as part of something called "Operation Secure Our Border." They include members of a movement that the shrub denounced as "vigilantes," and they also include members of even more radical groups that promote wild conspiracy theories and that explicitly threaten violence against the government.

And now, they have the blessing of a sitting Texas lawmaker. After touring the Rio Grande Valley near the border, repugican state Rep. Doug Miller claimed that the militias "have a right to be there" and that they "are not currently a problem." According to Miller, he was told that the militias "are on private property, helping ranchers and owners to keep illegals coming onto or through their property … and there haven't been any problems."
Miller is not the highest-ranking Texas official who has dismissed criticism of armed vigilantes patrolling the Texas border. Late last month, the 12 Democratic members of Texas' congressional delegation penned a letter to Greg Abbott, the state's attorney general and the repugican candidate to be Texas' next governor. In it, the 12 lawmakers quote a militia leader who said that "You see an illegal. You point your gun dead at him, right between the eyes, and you say, 'Get back across the border or you will be shot.'" They also ask Abbott to "denounce the actions of these militia groups and clarify the jurisdiction these militia groups have to patrol alongside local law enforcement and Border Patrol agents."
A spokesperson for Abbott dismissed the letter as a "partisan political stunt."
The militias Abbott would not denounce include a volatile mix of paranoid anti-government groups and potentially violent gun agitators. According to the Dallas Morning News, the earliest wave of militiamen coming to Texas included members of the Oathkeepers, a group which describes itself as an "association of currently serving military, reserves, National Guard, peace officers, fire-fighters, and veterans who swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic … and meant it." Their website warns of government officials "disarm[ing] the American people," "confiscat[ing] the property of the American people, including food and other essential supplies," and "blockad[ing] American cities, thus turning them into giant concentration camps."

These wingnut militias are posing some serious threats