From Local Sources



The Dubois County Sheriff’s Department believes young men and women from Dubois County in their teens and 20s have been recruited to South Texas by radical militia groups and are in danger.



Sheriff Donny Lampert knows of at least three local residents who are confirmed to have gone to Texas believing they are joining to “help fight the invasion of the drug cartel movement.”



“They really believe they are going down to help,” Lampert said, but the organizers they are dealing with are “twisting the truth.”



A sheriff’s department news release said recruits are receiving very minimal training and are being armed with assault rifles.



The Dubois County Sheriff’s Department has contacted the Texas Rangers and has learned the groups in question are radical in nature and have had confrontations with law enforcement and cartels. These groups bill themselves as “concerned citizens” and are not associated with any military or law enforcement agency operating in South Texas, according to Lampert.



“It is the job of the federal government to protect our borders,” the sheriff’s release said. “Our young men and women of Dubois County need to get jobs and let the officials there take care of that situation.”



Anyone who knows someone who has gone to Texas to join one of the rogue groups is asked to contact the county sheriff’s department at 812-482-3522. The sheriff’s department will then notify the Texas Rangers “to locate and send them back home, due to the extreme danger they are in,” according to the release.



Similar complaints of young people joining far-flung militias have not been reported to other local law enforcement agencies.



Lampert declined to say whether those county residents confirmed to have gone to Texas have returned. He believes militias are luring local recruits by word of mouth or social media.



Young people who have joined these paramilitary groups “legitimately care and want to help,” Lampert said. “Their heart is in the right place, but they don’t realize what they’re getting into.”



Armed militias have complicated the situation along the Mexican border. Last month, a heavily armed crew dressed in camouflage helped Border Patrol agents round up eight immigrants hiding in and around a canal near the Rio Grande.



Agents assumed the crew that joined in pulling the immigrants from the canal was a tactical unit from the Texas Department of Public Safety. Only later did they learn the men belonged to a militia that has no law-enforcement training or authority of any kind.



The situation ended peacefully with the immigrants getting arrested and the Border Patrol advising the militia members “to properly and promptly” identify themselves anytime they encounter law-enforcement officers. But the episode was unsettling enough for the Border Patrol to circulate an “issue paper” warning other agents.



The presence of armed militia members working on their own in a region known for human trafficking, drug smuggling and illegal immigration has added one more variable to an already complex and tense situation.



Although the Aug. 6 incident near Mission, Texas, resulted in no harm, it’s not hard to imagine deadlier outcomes throughout the Rio Grande Valley, a wide area patrolled by more than 3,000 border agents, as well as hundreds of state troopers, game wardens, deputies, local police officers and National Guard troops.



The Associated Press contributed to this report.



Contact The Herald at news@dcherald.com.