A border vigilante near Sasabe yelled at a group of Tucson Audubon Society birders, calling them “traffickers in training,” and destroyed humanitarian aid left for migrants.
Paul Flores posted on Facebook a video of himself on Sunday pouring out gallons of water and taking a five-gallon bucket that said “Food” in Spanish on the lid, which was meant to be humanitarian aid for migrants in the desert.
The Arizona borderlands is one of the most treacherous border crossings in the nation, with hundreds of sets of human remains found each year. Humanitarian aid groups including No More Deaths, the Samaritans and Humane Borders have been leaving water in known migrant corridors for years to try to cut back on the number of deaths.
Humane Borders has special-use permits from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to maintain four water locations in the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge. It’s not clear from Flores’ video where he was or what humanitarian group left the supplies he destroyed.
In the video, Flores says the water is left out for drug traffickers and child traffickers, as he pours gallon after gallon onto the ground. After he pours out 12 gallons of water, he picks up a crate with six full gallons and says he’s going to take those with him.
He also opens a five-gallon container that has nonperishable food items in it.
“Aw, look at this — everything that you could possibly need,” he says while rifling through the food at the top of the container. “Look at that. What do we got right here? Beans, baby. We’re taking this thank you very much. Gracias. … That’s my food now. Thank you very much guys.”
Shawna Martin, who goes by “Butterfly,” was videotaping Flores, who calls himself a reporter. The two were both at the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, and are associated with Veterans on Patrol, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has identified as a hate group.
Flores also posted a separate video of himself Sunday harassing a group of birders from the Tucson Audubon Society during an event called Birding the Border, which had about 20 people in attendance.
The Audubon Society would not comment on the interaction with Flores but said Sunday’s field trip “combined a morning of joyful birding in Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge with sobering, factual presentations from staff members of local organizations on the ecological and human impacts of the border wall in our region.”
In the video, Flores says the birders are people who put food out for traffickers. The group members are in about 10 cars and had briefly stopped where he is standing by the border wall.
“You guys gonna have fun learning how to child traffic?” he shouts at their cars as they slowly pass him as he stands on the dirt border road.
Flores also posted a photo of himself giving the finger in front of a “no trespassing” sign on the border wall. Officials put the signs in that area after a small group of men set up camp by the wall last summer and demanding that migrants they saw crossing the border be recorded and give out personal information, including the phone numbers of their U.S. sponsors.
Myles Traphagen, a local ecologist who was on the Audubon tour and saw Flores filming the group, said interactions like this could be a dangerous situation in the making.
“Given the inherent confusion the wild landscapes of the borderlands present to people, coupled with language and cultural barriers and inflamed tempers, I worry that a tragic encounter could occur, because it’s happened before,” Traphagen said. “Why should we have to wait until something bad happens, and only then, in order for law enforcement to act, when it could have been prevented by proactive policing?”
The Arizona Daily Star asked Customs and Border Protection if they were aware of these incidents or planned to take action. The agency sent a long prepared statement that read in part:
“CBP does not endorse or support any private group or organization from taking matters into their own hands as it could have disastrous personal and public safety consequences. CBP strongly encourages concerned citizens to call the U.S. Border Patrol and/or local law enforcement authorities if they witness or suspect illegal activity.”
In most of Flores’ Facebook posts he asks for money and supplies and adds links to his PayPal account and Amazon wish lists that include food and household supplies, a laptop, a generator, solar lights and other supplies for living off of the grid, $120 sunglasses, batteries, U.S. Border Patrol flags, vehicle supplies like oil and new tires, a gun and rifle safe and many other items.
He has many posts of packages that arrived in which he thanks his donors. In other posts he’s holding what looks like a semiautomatic rifle. And in some he’s posted photos of migrants, women and children he’s come across while they are crossing the border.
Officials from Arizona and Mexico gather in Tucson to join forces in highlighting the dangers of crossing the desert. Video by Danyelle Khmara/Arizona Daily Star
