We Build The Wall, whose founder Brian Kolfage was charged Thursday through a federal grand jury along with Steve Bannon and two others, is at the top for alleged monetary crimes by his executives. But over the past year and a half, the TPM has also covered some other facet of the group: its extensive and well-documented ties to right-wing border guards.
Much of the initial documentation of the links appeared on video. Thanks to Jim Benvie, a member and cameraman of an organization of border guards that have since disappeared, the United Constitutional Patriots, later renamed Patriots Guardians. UCP members dressed in latticework and carried rifles, posing as Border Patrol agents, and detained migrants as they tried to cross the U.S.-Mexico border.
We covered UCP for the first time in April last year, after one of Benvie’s live broadcasts showed that vigilantes were arresting dozens of migrants and handing them over to the authorities. But Benvie made tons of videos, appearing as top arrests, where vigilantes called federal agents after seeing and detaining others at the border.
Benvie was eventually charged and convicted of impersonating a Border Patrol agent, but not until he had sufficient behind-the-scenes access to The Build The Wall’s first outdoor structure site in El Paso, Texas, adding interviews with Kolfage and Attorney General Kris Kobach. Training
UCP members with Kolfage when, as a specialist, he illegally crossed the southern border of Mexico in his wheelchair and returned to the United States.
In fact, We Build The Wall’s first structure site is not far from where UCP camped at night, tracking and arresting other people looking to cross.
New Mexico law enforcement officials, in addition to State Police Chief Tim Johnson and senior administration officials to Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D), were involved about the legality of the activity, showed emails received through the TPM. In addition to Benvie, another UCP member, Larry Mitchell Hopkins, then charged with violating a federal firearm, pleaded guilty in January.
Although We Build The Wall’s official position is not similar to border guards, the group’s movements were contrary.
On one occasion to celebrate the final touch of the first structure assignment, where Benvie filmed a live broadcast for his Facebook enthusiasts, We Build co-founder Dustin Stockton addressed him and expressed his gratitude.
“You showed, Jim, you and your team showed how busy this domain was,” Stockton said, pointing to the border strip in the past.
“Their videos have shown us how serious this crisis is,” he added. “And when we saw that, the evidence is there. We had absolute evidence of what was going on here. And to be able to put an end to that with people’s money so fast, it’s moving.”
Another UCP member, Steve “Viper” Brant, acted as the unofficial security of the structure site.
Not all border guards were: the right-wing fringe figures had special access to the border wall structure site, and Added Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes.
Absurd claims about immigrants have become a component of the project’s discourse. By campaigning for a border wall, Kolfage blurred the dividing line between violent gang members and others looking to come to the United States for protection and opportunity.
In one of the few conversations I’ve had with Kolfage over the next year, I’ve shared their views on immigrants.
It was in December, after posting a video of a guy who said he was fleeing Honduras to the United States because the MS-13 gang was threatening him for the money he owed. Kolfage told me that asylum seekers are supervised and that “the duty of cash does not qualify you for asylum.”
I pushed: So all those threatened by gang violence in Central America chose to be part of them?
“Women don’t,” she says. “Men have a choice.”