A Tennessee man arrested Monday hoped to travel to the southern border with a militia group that allegedly plotted to go “to war with the border patrol,” believing that the country was being invaded by migrants.
FBI agents disrupted a plot by three men — two of whom said they were part of a militia — to travel to the Texas-Mexico border to kill Border Patrol agents and immigrants crossing illegally because they believed the country was being invaded, according to court documents filed in federal courts.
One of the men also called and left a phone message to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’soffice to alert him about their plans, saying: “If y’all cannot take care of this border and shut it down then we will be forced to come in and do it ourselves,” according to a criminal complaint.
The men — Bryan C. Perry, 38; Jonathan S. O’Dell, 33; and Paul Faye, 55 — were arrested by FBI agents and face various federal charges in connection to their alleged plot, which authorities say they started organizing in 2022 and planned to carry out in October 2023.
In August of 2022, Perry and O’Dell agreed to go “to war with the border patrol,” according to the superseding indictment. Perry later told a woman he attempted to recruit on TikTok and Instagram that his “intentions are to go down there and basically start a war,” the complaint says.