How Antigovernment Extremists and QAnon took over the Southern Border

[Nevilledog]

https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2022/08/08/how-antigovernment-extremists-and-qanon-took-over-southern-border

In Sasabe, Arizona, along the U.S.-Mexico border, far-right Christian nationalists and QAnon adherents have steadily visited the area trying to detain migrants to stop a supposed migrant invasion.


Jason Frank is one of the individuals linked to the Facebook vigilante group operating under the name “Border Angels.” Individuals associated with the group, which co-opted its name from a different organization based in San Diego, California, have established a following on social media platforms such as Facebook and Telegram to help disseminate QAnon conspiracy theories that target migrants, border patrol agents and humanitarian workers.

Frank’s group is made up of QAnon adherents who erroneously claim they are simply saving children from sex traffickers while also helping curtail cartel operations near the border wall in Sasabe. Over the past two years, Sasabe has become a hotbed for far-right vigilante activity attracting extremists from across the country to engage in migrant detainments. The border militia group Veterans on Patrol (VOP) was the first to capitalize on the lack of oversight in the region by pushing out calls for “patriots” to join them in stopping the supposed “invasion” taking place on the Southern border.

In one instance earlier this year, Frank’s group allegedly chased two humanitarians who were doing work at the border. Jason Frank and his group declined to comment for this story.

A call to patriots

Michael “Lewis Arthur” Meyer founded Veterans on Patrol (VOP) in 2015. Meyer is a conspiracy theorist and vocal opponent of vaccinations who is obsessed with the idea of child sex camps, migrant invasions, corrupt Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents and Mexican drug cartels. In 2021, Hatewatch reported on Meyer’s “border coalition,” a network of far-right extremists that assembled in Three Points, Arizona, to track and apprehend migrants and hand them over to CBP agents.

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