In early September 2022, Bryan Perry filmed a cell phone video from a friend’s home in the small town of Warsaw, Missouri. The video, which the prosecution later used against him at trial, featured Perry talking about “a war” against the government.
Other videos, all shared on TikTok, were equally damning.
To “protect this country,” Perry and his friend, Jonathan O’Dell, were in the midst of recruiting people for an armed civilian group they called the 2nd American Militia. At one point, he made another video to share that he and the group were “going out huntin.’” Their plan was to head to the US-Mexico border and kill both immigrants and the Border Patrol agents they believed were allowing people to enter the country.
Both men were arrested just one day before they planned to leave Warsaw, and when the FBI surrounded his house, O’Dell fired 11 shots at one of their vehicles. He surrendered before Perry, who ultimately walked down the front porch carrying an American flag.
This story is one of the latest wrinkles in the longstanding but tenuous relationship between Border Patrol and far-right militias. Hundreds of heavily armed, civilian-led militias exist across the country, and many of the groups at the southern border are friendly with law enforcement. Some even provide auxiliary support for local sheriffs and Border Patrol, calling local law enforcement when they encounter migrants near the border. As President Donald Trump boasts of a forthcoming “mass deportation,” researchers and aid workers worry armed militias could play an informal role in that work.
“Busting Heads”
Still, most militias harbor a natural distrust of government, law enforcement, and their perceived overreach. Perry and O’Dell are part of a long line of militia members who have threatened Border Patrol and other federal employees, and the budget, manpower, and reach of Border Patrol continues to expand.
“If we look back over the last 50 years, they’ve gone from 1,500 agents to 20,000 agents,” says Reece Jones, an author and political geographer. “And as the agency grows, we see them using that authority more and more in places that you wouldn’t expect.”
For example, he adds, “They can stop and interrogate people with virtually no reason within 100 miles of borders and coastlines. That’s a vast area that two-thirds of Americans live in.”
Other experts and observers offer even starker messages about the agency’s ambitions.
“The militias want to be on the ground busting heads,” says Jenn Budd, a former Border Patrol agent turned critic. Her old employer, she says, wants more power. “They really do not want to be dealing with migrants. They want to do intelligence.”
The question, then, is how much militias will hinder or help that goal.
Delicate Relationship
Surrounded by men wearing “white power” T-shirts, 27-year-old Klan leader David Duke said he was “very much concerned with the illegal alien problem.” He’d arrived in San Diego in October 1977 for what The New York Times called a “border tour,” and he told reporters that he had a force of armed men ready to quell the “rising tide” of immigration that threatened American culture.
Duke’s posse didn’t manage to stop any immigration, and as noted by one expert, the Knights of the Klu Klux Klan might have been more effective if, at that time, they had stronger ties with the police.
“The Klan was really powerful when it was allied with law enforcement, not against it,” says Simon Clark, a widely published expert on combating white supremacy.
Many militias have boasted of strong ties with Border Patrol, occasionally using them to further their legitimacy. Others have worn gear strikingly similar to the Border Patrol uniform, or even impersonated agents altogether.
In late 2020, a court sentenced Jim Benvie, a member of the group United Constitutional Patriots, to nearly two years in prison for impersonating a Border Patrol agent. Prior to his arrest, he and his fellow militia members frequently stopped people near the border and called the agency, who came to pick up the immigrants. The year prior, that militia had made international headlines when its armed members detained a group of migrants near Flora Vista, New Mexico.
“A Lot of Fun”
There are many examples of this type of supplemental support.
Michael Lewis Arthur Meyer, the non-veteran leader of a militia called Veterans on Patrol, has published multiple videos in which he interacts with border agents who praise his work. In one video, from 2021, Meyer and his men share drone footage with an agent who calls the group “effective and a lot of fun.” Later, Meyer shares that another agent told his militia to restrict their operations to a specific area, but the agent replies, “I don’t care what you do, you’re talking to me.”
At that point, Meyer had already faced arrest multiple times on charges like theft, criminal damage, and burglarly. He was still claiming ties to Border Patrol in early 2024, when a video taken in the small town of Washtucna, Washington, showed him discussing how agents pulled him aside and told him they needed help. (Border Patrol contacts in Arizona, Texas, and at the national level did not respond to questions for this story.)
Later in 2024, Telegram chat logs showed members of Veterans on Patrol discussing the sabotage of government equipment as a response to hurricanes in North Carolina. The hurricane was a government weapon, they claimed, which constituted an “act of war.”
Sabotage and Harassment
Humanitarian organizations along the southern border have grown accustomed to sabotage and harassment, though it’s the latter that most bothers Laurie Cantillo. Her organization, Humane Borders, places barrels of water in frequently traveled areas throughout the desert, and Cantillo says the barrels have been shot, stabbed, drilled, and stolen “dozens” of times in recent years. The water is intended for anyone who might need it, she says, including Border Patrol agents, and any time the vandalism happens, she thinks of the thousands of immigrants who have died in the borderlands since 2000, many from dehydration.
“It’s unconscionable that someone would willingly deny water to a fellow human being,” she says.
Another Arizona-based volunteer, Paul Nixon, works with the organization Green Valley Samaritans. He says he and his colleagues try to steer clear of militias (“We’re not going to be able to calm down some guy with an AR-15,” he says) and he has met several Border Patrol agents who also find these groups to be a nuisance.
“It’s unconscionable that someone would willingly deny water to a fellow human being.” – Laurie Cantillo
“We have a satellite phone, and when we run into a militia group that’s causing problems, we tell them we’ve called Border Patrol, and they’ll leave,” he says.
“I think a lot of them feel like they’re being tasked with jobs they didn’t sign up for,” he added later, discussing Border Patrol. “I’ve heard agents say they’re ‘Uber drivers’: they just pick people up and drive them to a different location. So, when we interact with Border Patrol, we all just play it on the real straight and arrow.”
“A Lot of Sheriffs”
Amy Cooter, a director at the Middlebury Institute’s Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism, echoes Nixon’s point: Not all Border Patrol agents are fans of militias, just as many militias are critical of the agency.
“The general feeling is, ‘Border Patrol is not doing their job, so real Americans need to come fix this,’” she says, noting that “a lot of sheriffs” have nevertheless engaged with militias. “Border Patrol has had a long-term skepticism towards many of these private actors,” she adds, though, “the potential is there to shift.”
Sam Hall, leader of the group Patriots for America, is one example of a militia boss who has made inroads with Border Patrol and says he is open to working with law enforcement on a more formal basis.
His group has been going on recurring “rotations” at the border for the last three years, patrolling private lands after coming to an agreement with the owners. Hall says he meets with a Border Patrol commander to ensure “operational integrity” before every rotation, and he adds that he has received invitations to “top brass meetings” with the agency.
“That should show you how much they know and trust us to do what we do, and what we’ve been doing legally, and stay above bar,” he explains.
However, he does have a strained relationship with a Department of Public Safety sergeant that Hall claims has “illegally detained” his group three times. (The department didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment.)
Hall says he has now hired a lawyer because he’s “done taking it on the chin with that man.”
“Volunteer” Border Enforcement
On the first day of his appointment as Trump’s “border czar,” Tom Homan, a former Border Patrol agent, says he received “thousands” of messages from retired agents and military personnel who “want to come in and volunteer to help this president secure the border and do this deportation operation.”
Homan also served in ICE leadership roles during Trump’s first term and in the Obama administration, and multiple experts say he could represent that “new shift” in the relationship between Border Patrol and civilian militias.
For instance, in addition to his friendliness with constitutional sheriffs — sheriffs who believe they can override state and federal authority — Homan has also floated the possibility of a new hotline that Americans can call and report immigrants they suspect are criminals. “We want to give them an opportunity to be a part of the fix,” he told NBC News.
“You are on the frontline of the war against global jihadism.” – Sebastian Gorka
This closely mirrors recent talking points by Sebastian Gorka, Trump’s pick to serve as counterterrorism chief on the White House National Security Council.
“You are on the frontline of the war against global jihadism,” he told Newsmax viewers after the New Year’s Day attack in New Orleans. “It’s not just our tier-one operators. It’s not just the guys at Dam Neck, the SEALs, or the guys over the wire at Bragg. You. You, like the people on Bourbon Street, are on the front line. So be aware.”
He added that the people “closest to the threat” were in the best position to protect America’s security.
Green Light
Longtime militia watchers say this type of messaging directly appeals to armed civilian groups. In fact, longtime journalist David Neiwert, who is the author of several books about the US far right, says the mere mention of a “mass deportation” is a dog whistle for militias, as is Trump’s language about immigrants “poisoning the blood of our country.”
“Trump is greenlighting these guys as much as possible,” says Neiwert. “In their minds, they’re certainly empowered. They see it as an absolute endorsement of everything they stand for. They’re going to feel in charge and empowered, and it’s not going to be too long before we have some ugly incidents.”
He predicts the agency’s relationship with militias will remain informal, much as it is now, but Homan may eventually try to formalize the ties, effectively deputizing volunteers.
One would assume militias, given their anti-authoritian bent, would bristle at the notion of joining forces with the government. Yet groups like the Texas Three Percenters and the Arizona Border Recon (who reject the term “militia” in favor of “civilian patrol group”) have openly expressed a greater willingness to work alongside state and federal authorities in their deportation efforts.
“I think they see the government under Trump as being a different creature than the government under Biden,” Neiwert explains.
For militias, the ultimate “green light” (a term used by multiple people interviewed for this story) would be a pardon of the Jan. 6 protestors, many of whom are militia members. That group includes Elmer Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the Oath Keepers and a longtime advocate for mobilizing against the government.
“Very Sympathetic”
Such a pardon would be an attempt to sell the narrative that the Jan. 6 insurrection was “not a big deal,” notes Matt Valasik, a professor at the University of Alabama, while also thanking militias for their fealty to Trump.
It’s this nuance — fealty to the president but not the government as a whole — that could pose the scariest risk.
“If you think you can go out and start arresting people with your militia unit, I think there’s going to be some serious confrontations,” Neiwert says. “It’s possible law enforcement will get involved at that point — that is, local law enforcement. Then again, it’s a mixed bag — a lot of local law enforcement is very sympathetic with these guys.”
Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, says militias “became loyal to Trump over his first term,” and even if they’re not formally deputized, a second term with even more Trump loyalists — and the added legitimacy of a presidential parton — creates the possibility of a “free-for-all.”
“There’s the problem of possible vigilante action,” she says, “where people think, ‘I can just go out and round people up.’”
She adds that there are already plenty of examples of civilians echoing Trump’s language on immigration, even far from the border.
In Milwaukee, in late December, residents found flyers labeled “MASS DEPORTATION NOTICE.” The flyers requested that immigrants without proper documentation return home before the Trump inauguration. Around the same time, in rural Oregon, someone circulated a letter calling on people to write down the license plates of those they believe lack proper documentation.
“Rogue Violence”
Both Neiwert and Simon Clark, the white supremacy expert, echoed Beirich and expressed their fears of “rogue violence” going unchecked on the border or far away. Clark, for one, added that such violence might not be a major concern of the incoming administration.
“You might — and again, this is speculation — but you could imagine, in the beginning of a mass deportation scenario, a combination of legal violence and paralegal violence,” says Clark.
This violence would come at the hands of ICE, Border Patrol, sheriffs, and volunteers.
“What Trump and people around Trump — Stephen Miller in particular — wanted to do around 2020 was to crack heads,” Clark adds. “To have legitimate and semi-legitimate political violence against their opponents when given the opportunity to do so. And they were incredibly frustrated when they weren’t able to get it done in most places.”
It’s not hard to imagine, he explains, a local militia hunting for immigrants raiding “some meatpacking plant in the middle of nowhere, in the Midwest.”
He adds, “Things could get a little rough. And a little rough is what they want.”
“Direct Undermining”
From the militias’ perspective, could Border Patrol ever be “too rough” on American citizens?
Perhaps, says Cooter, the extremism expert. But it’s “very difficult” to predict.
“Militias tend to have incredibly skeptical, at best, thoughts about federal agencies, as you know,” explains. “[Border Patrol] tends to have some exceptions to the overall negative view when militias see them as effectively engaging in ant-immigration efforts.”
But, she notes, “If their purview expands in ways that militias see as targeting other groups beyond this ‘easy’ outgroup, such allowances may fall by the wayside.”
That’s when militias could engage in “direct undermining” of Border Patrol or other law enforcement bodies they accuse of overreach.
“If some [Border Patrol agents] do want to be in the broader national security landscape,” she says, “it makes their relationship with militias even trickier.”