Report: Militias on the U.S.-Mexico border waterboard each other for training

Militia groups along the U.S.-Mexico Border consider themselves to be “the wall,” taking matters into their own hands and fighting to keep undocumented immigrants out of the country, until Donald Trump is elected president, they said, an investigation by Mother Jones published Oct. 25, 2016 revealed. less Militia groups along the U.S.-Mexico Border consider themselves to be “the wall,” taking matters into their own hands and fighting to keep undocumented immigrants out of the country, until Donald Trump is ... more Photo: Courtesy/YouTube Screengrab Photo: Courtesy/YouTube Screengrab Image 1 of / 47 Caption Close Report: Militias on the U.S.-Mexico border waterboard each other for training 1 / 47 Back to Gallery

Militia groups along the U.S.-Mexico Border consider themselves to be “the wall,” taking matters into their own hands and fighting to keep undocumented immigrants from entering the country, until Donald Trump is elected president, they said, an investigation by Mother Jones published Tuesday revealed.

Shane Bauer, a reporter for Mother Jones who previously went undercover as a private prison guard, joined the Three Percent United Patriots’ (3UP) “Operation Spring Break” in April in Arizona along the U.S.-Mexico Border.

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The operation, put on by the 3UP militia group, according to Bauer’s report, required an “extensive” list of supplies, “including weapons, medical supplies, and body cameras” all to look for undocumented immigrants trying to enter the country.

Mother Jones found that the number of “militia and anti-government ‘patriot’ groups spiked in the '90s during the Clinton administration and then quickly declined during the Bush years, only to surge again after the election of President Barack Obama.”

To prepare to police the border, in no official capacity, one of the militia members told Bauer the group created the Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape (SERE) school for incoming recruits.

In the course, recruits are waterboarded, Captain Pain, one of the militia members told Bauer.

“You know those little water bottles we have at camp? I’ll pour it around their nose and around their mouths, but not a lot of it gets in there,” Captain Pain said.

Showtime, another militia member, said when the recruits then try to hold their breaths during the waterboarding, “we Tase ‘em in the armpit. Hahaha!”

During the course, Captain Pain says the recruits are taught the “vital” things they need to know when out on the border.

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“If they snatch you up out here, it’s really gonna be f---ed up,” Captain Pain said, adding that recruits are woken up early in the morning from their cars and train until they “fall out,” before they are told to imagine they have been “captured” by a drug cartel.

“We’ll put a bag on their head, cuff ‘em, strip ‘em down,” Showtime said. “They just got a big-ass T-shirt on. So it gets pretty cold in January. Hahaha!”

From there, recruits are put into a stall in a horse barn where they are sleep-deprived.

Then, they are cuffed to a table and asked questions about the militia, like the number of members or what radio frequency the group is on.

“We got a stress box,” Showtime said. “We put ‘em in there. Stick a cattle prod through the holes. One guy, he tried to turn around and we got him right between his legs in the ball sack.”

Later, when Bauer was no longer undercover, he asked Mike Morris who goes by Fifty Cal, the founder of 3UP and its commanding officer, about the training.

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"Stories of SERE are greatly exaggerated. Yes, we have a version of SERE; it's more of a gauge of mental awareness than anything to do with torture," Fifty Cal said.

During his time undercover, Bauer said he contacted a militia in Texas who told him that they prepare by practicing “ambush tactics” and “shooting blanks at each other.”

kbradshaw@express-news.net

Twitter: @kbrad5