TAOS, N.M. - The FBI on Saturday said it had arrested Larry Hopkins, the leader of an armed group that is stopping undocumented migrants after they cross the U.S.-Mexico border into New Mexico.
The arrest came two days after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) accused the group of illegally detaining migrants and New Mexico’s Democratic Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham ordered an investigation.
Hopkins, 69, also known as Johnny Horton, was arrested in Sunland Park, New Mexico, on a federal complaint charging him with being a felon in possession of firearms and ammunition, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said in a statement.
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“We’re not worried about it, he’s going to be cleared,” said Jim Benvie, a spokesman for the United Constitutional Patriots (UCP), blaming his arrest on political pressure from Lujan Grisham.
Hopkins is the “national commander” of the UCP, which has had around half a dozen members camped out on a rotating basis near Sunland Park since late February.
FILE PHOTO: U.S. soldiers walk next to the border fence between Mexico and the United States, as migrants are seen walking behind the fence, after crossing illegally into the U.S. to turn themselves in, in El Paso, Texas, U.S., in this picture taken from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, April 3, 2019. The writing on the wall reads, "Help us Jesus Christ." REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez/File Photo
PATRIOTS OR FASCISTS?
The UCP describes itself as a “patriot group” helping U.S. Border Patrol cope with record numbers of Central American families crossing the border to seek asylum.
Dressed in camouflage and carrying rifles, UCP members have helped U.S. Border Patrol detain over 5,600 migrants in the last two months, Benvie said. Videos posted online by the group show members telling migrants to stop, sit down, and wait for agents to arrive. Critics accuse the UCP of impersonating law enforcement.
Crowdfunding sites PayPal and GoFundMe on Friday barred the group, citing policies not to promote hate or violence, after the ACLU called the UCP a “fascist militia.”
“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,” New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas said in a statement of Hopkins’s arrest.
President Donald Trump on Monday plunged himself into a made-for-TV spat with his former aide Omarosa Manigault Newman -- a mud-slinging match that has fueled fears of chaos in his White House and cast doubt on his pledge to hire "only the best people."
Manigault Newman -- who first gained fame as a contestant on Trump's reality show "The Apprentice," and then secured a $180,000-a-year staff job at the White House -- released a recording of a private conversation she had with the president after she was fired.
The recording is the latest volley from the disgruntled 44-year-old starlet, once an ardent Trump ally, and represents another stunning breach of presidential trust. It also came on the eve of the release of her tell-all book, "Unhinged."
NBC's "Today" program on Monday played the brief recording, in which Trump claims to have had no knowledge that she was sacked and expresses regret at the news.
That revelation sparked a stream of presidential invective on Twitter.
"Wacky Omarosa, who got fired 3 times on the Apprentice, now got fired for the last time. She never made it, never will," Trump said in a stream of angry tweets.
The Republican president claimed that Manigault Newman "already has a fully signed Non-Disclosure Agreement!" -- a first admission that members of the administration were asked to sign potentially illegal hush deals.
If such deals prohibit government staff from revealing all information they learn of at work, the American Civil Liberties Union said "they are unconstitutional and unenforceable."
- 'They run a big operation' -
Manigault Newman's recordings have also caused political problems for Trump, dominating American headlines for days -- and she told NBC that there are "absolutely" more audio files.
The latest recording appears to show a president who has little knowledge of what is happening inside his own White House -- or who is willing to lie to avoid confrontation.
"Omarosa? Omarosa, what's going on? I just saw on the news that you're thinking about leaving? What happened?" he said, apparently unaware she had already been fired.
"Nobody even told me about it," Trump is heard saying, after chief of staff John Kelly terminated her employment.
"You know they run a big operation, but I didn't know it," he says, adding: "I didn't know that. Goddamn it. I don't love you leaving at all."
- 'Wacky Omarosa' -
Trump had already branded "Omarosa" -- as she is commonly known in America -- a "lowlife" after she released a recording of her firing by Kelly, seemingly recorded in the White House Situation Room.
He hurled angry tweets at his former friend, as he prepared to return to the White House following an 11-day vacation in New Jersey.
"She begged me for a job, tears in her eyes, I said Ok. People in the White House hated her. She was vicious, but not smart. I would rarely see her but heard really bad things," Trump tweeted.
"Nasty to people & would constantly miss meetings & work. When Gen. Kelly came on board he told me she was a loser & nothing but problems. I told him to try working it out, if possible, because she only said GREAT things about me - until she got fired!"
Trump seemed to acknowledge that the unseemly fight would have been unusual for most of his 44 predecessors as president of the United States.
"While I know it?s 'not presidential' to take on a lowlife like Omarosa, and while I would rather not be doing so, this is a modern day form of communication and I know the Fake News Media will be working overtime to make even Wacky Omarosa look legitimate as possible. Sorry!"
She fired back, telling NBC: "I think it's sad with all of the things going on in the country that he would take time out to insult me and to insult my intelligence. This is his pattern with African Americans. He doesn't know how to control himself."
Trump came to office vowing to hire "only the best people" -- but has struggled to put a lid on leaks, incompetence, backbiting and scandal inside his White House.
Manigault Newman is only one of a number of senior aides to Trump who have left the White House or been dismissed in the first 18 months of his presidency.
Others on that list include former national security advisor Michael Flynn, communications director Anthony Scaramucci, chief strategist Steve Bannon, secretary of state Rex Tillerson and the former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt.
A US border security chief says he has temporarily stopped launching criminal prosecutions of migrants who illegally enter the country with children.
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Kevin McAleenan told reporters in Texas the prosecution referrals were suspended last week.
He said it followed an order last week by President Donald Trump calling for an end to migrant family separations.
But Mr Trump had suggested the families would instead be detained together.
The Republican president bowed to public pressure last Wednesday, signing his executive order to "keep families together" in migrant detentions.
Mr McAleenan maintained that the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" tactics were still in effect, although the commissioner's guidance to his agents largely leaves the policy in limbo.
The CBP chief said parents cannot be prosecuted if US officials no longer intend to separate them from their children, who are legally not allowed to be kept in adult detention facilities.
He said his agency and the Department of Justice must figure out how to prosecute the parents without splitting them from their children, the Associated Press news agency reported.
The border official's decision paves the way for US immigration enforcement to revert largely to the approach under the Obama administration.
Media captionDrone footage shows a "tent city" immigration centre
It means US border agents who stop undocumented adult migrants accompanied by children will hand them a court summons and allow them to go on their way, rather than hold them in a detention facility.
President Trump repeatedly lamented this "catch and release" policy before his administration began in April criminally prosecuting adult migrants and holding their children separately to deter border crossings.
On Monday, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said the reality was that the US did not have the space to hold all the undocumented families coming across the US-Mexico border.
"We're not changing the policy," she told reporters. "We're simply out of resources."
The Pentagon confirmed on Monday that two Texas military bases will be used as temporary camps to house the immigrants.
But Defence Secretary Jim Mattis did not specify whether the facilities - Fort Bliss and Goodfellow Air Force Base - would house migrant families together.
US media earlier reported that one of the bases would be used to house migrant families and the other would shelter undocumented children who enter the US unaccompanied by an adult.
Meanwhile, US Attorney General Jeff Sessions talked tough on immigration at a school police officers' conference in Reno, Nevada, on Monday.
Media captionCisary Reynaud has not spoken to his daughter since they were separated
America's top law official said that refusing to prosecute adults who illegally enter the US "would be a disservice to the people of this country", reports the New York Times.
He told the audience that lax border enforcement would "encourage more adults to bring more children illegally".
However, he also said the Trump administration would "do everything in our power to avoid separating families".
The government has yet to reunite parents with more than 2,000 children who have been taken away since last month and sent to holding cells, converted warehouses, desert tents or foster care around the US.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sought a federal court injunction in San Diego, California, on Monday to stop the administration from separating undocumented immigrant parents from their children.
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGESImage captionPresident Trump signed an executive order halting separations but thousands of children remain separated from their families
It said that Mr Trump's order to end separations contained "loopholes".
Court papers filed by the ACLU contained numerous accounts of parents unable to locate or communicate with their children after they were separated by border officials.
In one declaration filed with the brief, a mother identified only by her initials E.J.O.E. said the government told her she would be reunited with her son as she applied for asylum.
But she says she was deported without her eight-year-old boy.
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