Patriots Huggie Bear, left, Ray, centre, and Will, right, patrol in their UTV near the border. Group members asked to be identified only by their handles or first names.
“Our goal here is to try to deter [migrants] from coming,” said Huggie Bear, a 25-year-old former U.S. Army infantry team leader. “They see us, they don’t know who we are, so that kind of scares people away for a while,”
“If you spot them and shine your light on them, that lets them know that you're there. Nine times out of ten, they’re not going to come over,” said Will, a 25-year-old construction worker from Indiana who flew to Texas for a stint with the Patriots.
“Even if they are going to try to cross again, we’re still making it harder for them and that’s the reason we’re here,” he said.
The Patriots Information Hotline, a networking call centre, estimates that 22 groups of “armed patriots” have sprung up along the border from Texas to California this year.