A group of civilians stopping illegal border crossers in New Mexico has been arrested by authorities for impersonating a border patrol agent.
Jim Benvie, spokesman for the Guardian Patriots, who have been camped at the border near Sunland Park, New Mexico, was arrested on Friday in Oklahoma after a warrant was issued on Wednesday in southern New Mexico.
The U.S. Department of Justice filed two federal charges, alleging that Benvie, 44, passed himself off as a Border Patrol agent in mid April.
This is the second arrest of an armed group member patrolling the border since such groups started patrolling the border last February.
News photographs of Benvie taken in March showed him wearing a camouflage jacket with a badge reading “Fugitive Recovery Agent” and a patch with an eagle-head insignia.
In Reuters interviews earlier this year, he denied his group posed as Border Patrol agents and said he was a citizen journalist documenting proof of the need for the border wall promised by U.S. President Donald Trump.
The Guardian Angels group split off from another citizens patrol monitoring the border called United Constitutional Patriots. The leader of UCP, Larry Hopkins, was arrested on felony gun charges.
(Photo by Jordyn Rozensky and Justin Hamel for The Washington Post )