Groups of violent, white-majority vigilante groups are increasingly patrolling areas along the U.S.-Mexican border, posing a risk to migrants and people of color, according to watchdog groups.

In parts of Texas, vigilante groups are targeting asylum seekers by detaining them while armed with weapons and using anti-immigrant rhetoric such as “invasion” to describe migrants at the border, said Kate Huddleston, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas. She pointed to Operation Lone Star, an initiative launched by Gov. Greg Abbott to bolster border enforcement with National Guardsmen, as adding fuel to the racial tensions often driving these incidents.

“We’re really concerned,” Huddleston said. “We’re seeing an alarming rise in white supremacist rhetoric.”

Dylan Corbett, executive director of the Hope Border Institute, an El Paso-based migrant advocacy group, said he and his clients have been repeatedly threatened by white supremacists and vigilante cells – armed groups who apprehend undocumented migrants crossing into the United States and regularly prowl the border near El Paso.

Anti-immigrant extremists have surrounded him and his group in pickup trucks while brandishing long rifles during prayer sessions at the border wall. They have used smartphones to film and intimidate the aid workers as they handed out sandwiches to migrants at the border.

The reports of local tensions come as the Department of Homeland Security released a bulletin earlier this week that said homegrown violent extremists may be targeting migrants and other groups, fueled in part by online conspiracy theories.

The memo warned that “some domestic violent extremists have expressed grievances related to their perception that the U.S. government is unwilling or unable to secure the U.S.-Mexico border and have called for violence to stem the flow of undocumented migrants to the United States.”

The bulletin also warned that, in the midst of a high-profile U.S. Supreme Court case about abortion rights, advocates both for and against abortion have urged violence on public forums. Statistics gathered by the National Abortion Federation have shown recent rises in clinic trespassing and obstruction, death threats, and mail and internet harassment.

Record number of migrants crossing US-Mexico border

The threat of U.S. extremist groups targeting people of color is a slight departure from typical DHS memos, which often warn of foreign terrorist threats or drug cartel violence against asylum-seekers. Acknowledgment that homegrown extremists could be targeting migrants comes as President Joe Biden’s administration continues to try to navigate around Trump administration-era border policies and instill a more humane immigration approach.

Supporters of the president have applauded efforts to do away with the former policies, such as Remain in Mexico, which returns most asylum-seekers to northern Mexican towns to await their U.S. immigration hearings. Critics complain that Biden is allowing too many asylum-seekers into the country and his policies encourage more to make the dangerous trek from Central and South America to the U.S.-Mexico border.

Border agents and officials have encountered nearly 1.3 million asylum seekers at the southwest border so far this fiscal year, on pace to surpass the record 1.5 million encountered last year.

In El Paso, Corbett called the DHS memo “a movement in the right direction.” He said his community was shaken in 2019 when a gunman who posted white supremacy theories opened fire inside an El Paso Walmart, killing 23 people, most of them Latinos.

“It’s sobering to see it in print and a part of the reality we live in in this country and on the border,” Corbett said of the memo.

The memo points to recent mass shootings by lone gunmen against communities of color, such as the shooting last month at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, where 10 Black people were killed and three others injured, and the 2019 El Paso shooting, both of which were allegedly motivated by racist conspiracy theories.

White terror groups pretend to be law enforcement

Huddleston, of the ACLU, said the DHS warning coincides with upticks in threats and attacks on migrants at or near the border this year from extremist groups. Under Abbott’s order, the state began arresting migrants and prosecuting them on trespassing charges. A lawsuit filed in April is challenging the arrests.

“We’ve seen an alarming presence of white vigilante groups at the border acting in a quasi-law enforcement capacity,” Huddleston said. “We are very concerned about the potential for violence.”

Equally concerning is the support the groups at times get from local law enforcement agencies. In Kinney County in south Texas, Sheriff Brad Coe has at times voiced support for the groups, she said. In a November post on its Facebook page, the Kinney County Sheriff’s Office reposted a video of a group of undocumented migrants trekking past deer stands on private property. The caption read: “Gotta love deer hunting in South Texas.” Coe’s office did not return a request for comment.

“That post is suggesting implicitly that migrants are comparable to deer and should be shot,” Huddleston said. “That kind of casual dehumanizing rhetoric is something we’re seeing a significant uptick in.”

A month after the video was posted, federal agents in Kinney County arrested Lucas Denney of the Patriot Boys of North Texas militia for his alleged role in last year’s assault on the U.S. Capitol in Washington. At the time of the arrest, Denney was patrolling a private ranch in Kinney County, according to social media reports.

That same month, the ACLU and other human rights organizations filed a complaint to the U.S. Department of Justice, requesting that it investigate Texas state agencies and local governments involved in arresting immigrants.

Rachel Carroll Rivas, senior research analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center, said her group has seen a recent shift in vigilante activity from Arizona to Texas. Though the groups’ numbers remain relatively small, they are actively recruiting like-minded people from around the country to come to the border and patrol for migrants, she said.

Many of the online posts by vigilante groups and white nationalists center on what is known as the “great replacement” theory, a false belief that people of color are being brought into the United States to replace white voters and achieve a political agenda, Rivas said.

The recent DHS memo is encouraging, she said, but the false theories and threats toward people of color have been percolating for years.

“DHS is acknowledging a threat that has been present for years,” Rivas said. “They’re a bit late to the game.”

Follow Jervis on Twitter: @MrRJervis.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: People of color face threats from violent extremists, DHS warns

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