A few days after the election, William Teer, who runs the Texas Three Percenters, a local far-right militia group, wrote to President-elect Donald Trump with an offer: His organization could help Trump carry out his plan to deport millions of people who are in the United States illegally.

“In support of our nation’s commitments to lawful immigration practices, I wanted to extend my willingness to assist, in cooperation with local law enforcement and community programs, to promote the safety and security of our state,” Teer wrote. “I am available for further discussion.”

He said Trump had yet to respond. A spokesperson for Trump’s transition team said the mass deportation plan would use state and federal resources, not private ones. But Teer’s offer was one of several recent efforts by far-right organizations, including some that have a history of taking it on themselves to patrol the border with Mexico, to insert themselves into the deportation plan.

Richard Mack, the founder of a group of hard-right sheriffs, said on television last week that if members of his organization assisted with the initiative, it would make it “a lot easier and a lot cheaper and a lot more effective.” And last month, members of other militia-style groups also volunteered their services, with some discussing in private group chats their desire to get involved.

One of Trump’s Signature Policy Proposals

The push by some militia groups to help Trump reflects how one of his signature policy proposals mirrors ideas that once existed solely on the fringes of American politics. Militia groups, especially in border states, have a long history of supporting enforcement efforts, sometimes taking migrants into custody on their own and turning them over to lawful authorities in agencies like the U.S. Border Patrol.

And while the new administration says it has no plans to call on the militias for help, the offer of assistance comes as Trump and his advisers confront an expensive and complex logistical problem: Deporting millions of immigrants in the U.S. illegally would require an investment of resources in immigration enforcement that has never been seen.

Last month, Tom Homan, a former immigration official nominated to oversee the deportation effort, seemed open to the idea of using nontraditional personnel to carry out the plan.

In an interview with Fox News, Homan spoke admiringly of the messages he received from “thousands of retired Border Patrol agents, retired military, that want to come in and volunteer to help this president secure the border and do this deportation operation.”

Advocates for immigrants have raised concerns that the policy could require hiring more than 30,000 new immigration agents and lead to thousands of “mixed status” families being torn apart. The plan has been criticized because of Trump’s suggestion that he might use military personnel to carry it out, operating under arcane laws like the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.

There is a long history of private vigilante groups patrolling the 2,000-mile U.S. border with Mexico, sometimes leading to trouble.

The Minutemen American Defense

In 2011, the leader of an anti-immigration border patrol group called the Minutemen American Defense was convicted of shooting and killing a 9-year-old and her father after breaking into their home in Arizona.

This year, federal prosecutors accused a member of a militia in Tennessee of gun charges after he told an undercover agent that he was planning to travel to the southern border with an arsenal of weapons and commit acts of violence against agents because the United States was “being invaded” by migrants.

Any involvement by militia groups in the deportation plan, sanctioned or not, would also add an extra layer of complexity to the task of carrying out the proposal, adding to the complex legal and security risks at play.

“The dangers are considerable and could include militias engaging in violence against immigrants,” said Heidi Beirich, a co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism. “Besides, these groups exist outside the legal rules that federal agents would have to follow. So under what authority would they even be taking part in this?”

In an interview by text message this week, Teer sought to play down such concerns. Echoing Trump, he said his organization — which takes its name from the supposed 3% of the U.S. colonial population that rose to fight the British — wanted to focus on immigrants with criminal records and had no problem with people “coming to this country and doing it the legal way.”

He also said that he and his compatriots could supplement the federal agents who would be called upon to execute Trump’s plan and would bring to bear on the initiative their experience in working at the border.

“We can supply man power to assist the government,” Teer wrote. “We have also been to the border, ran patrols to protect citizens.”

Several members of Three Percenter chapters in Florida and California have been prosecuted in connection with the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. One member of the Texas chapter, Guy Wesley Reffitt, was convicted in 2022 of wearing an illegal pistol on his hip as he helped to lead the charge on the Capitol at the first criminal trial stemming from the attack.

In his letter to Trump, Teer said he had been in contact with other organizations “across the South” that were also committed to helping with the deportation plan. He declined to identify the groups but said there were several in border states like Texas and California that wanted to be involved.

“They would all be willing to assist at the border and in rounding up illegals,” Teer’s letter said.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Alan Feuer/Paul Ratje
c. 2024 The New York Times Company