Conservative activists who planned to protest against illegal immigration and President Obama’s immigration policies on Saturday said they had canceled all events after receiving death threats from Mexican drug cartels.

Activists had planned to use vehicles as barricades to shut down border crossings at 17 locations in four states – Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas. But the event, called Shut Down All Ports of Entry, was canceled early on Saturday morning by organizer Stasyi Barth, who said she had received the threats.

In August, a similar protest was canceled after organizers claimed they had been threatened by Mexican drug cartels. The organizer of that 30-vehicle “Border Convoy”, Eric Odom, canceled a rally meant for El Paso in Texas but did not specify which cartel might have threatened his group.

“We had to cancel that because of death threats against our crew and convoy,” he told the Guardian. “We’re not into that. We are a very peaceful convoy and we want to show that the border is very dangerous and open.”

On Saturday, Barth said “an unsubstantiated threat of mass violence against attendees, along with very suspicious activity on the Facebook site” had forced her to cancel the event, telling supporters: “Your lives, and the lives of our law enforcement, are more important than any protest.”

It is unclear how many people might have attended the protests. A Facebook page for the event has just more than 1,800 members. Barth is a 41-year-old former computer programer who, according to the Daily Pilot, has lived on disability benefits for about a decade.

“It was [a] cartel threatening a blood bath, [Facebook] hits coming [en] masse from Mexico,” Barth told the conservative website TheBlaze. “One of the organizers was being followed and was verbally told not to go.”

On Facebook, Barth said “law enforcement is involved and is investigating”. She did not specify which cartel might have threatened the group, or which law enforcing agencies were investigating.

Some media outlets identified the group organising the canceled protest as a militia, though Barth denied that. The mayor of Rio Grande, Texas, Ruben Villarreal, said he believed some members of the group would be armed, according to local news station KRGV.

