Far-Right Militia Hero Bundy Comes Out Against ICE

Ammon Bundy helped turn standoffs with federal agents into must-see conservative theater; now he's finding that many of his old allies no longer want to hear from him. The onetime face of the anti-government "Patriot Movement" has broken with much of the nationalist right over immigration enforcement, denouncing the Trump administration's tactics as a "moral failure" and comparing the treatment of undocumented immigrants to the wartime internment of Japanese Americans. In a self-published essay and in livestreams reacting to recent fatal encounters involving ICE, Bundy has called the agency's conduct "tyranny" and suggested he would resist if his own family were threatened, reports the Atlantic in a long look at Bundy's perhaps surprising views.

On immigration and humanitarian issues, he now says "the left has it much more correct than the nationalist right," even as he continues to describe Democrats as "communist-anarchists" driven by "wickedness." Bundy's core ideology—near-absolute individual liberty, minimal government, hostility to social services, opposition to LGBTQ+ rights, and suspicion of vaccines—has changed little since he and his father, Cliven, rallied armed supporters against federal land authorities in Nevada in 2014 and led the 2016 wildlife refuge takeover in Oregon. Back then, Fox News, Republican senators, and conservative audiences toasted him as a symbol of righteous resistance to federal power. But the broader right has shifted: former allies now largely defend the same kind of armed, masked federal agents they once confronted, so long as those agents are targeting undocumented immigrants.

Interviews with past Bundy allies underscore the split. Some, like militia figure Eric Parker and members of Bundy-linked networks, praised ICE's use of force in one recent case and argued that courts, not activists, should judge agents' conduct. A few softened their stance after the killing of Alex Pretti, but most remained firmly supportive of aggressive enforcement. Bundy says he's stunned that people who once rallied to a universal notion of God-given rights now appear willing to set those aside for noncitizens. Ideologically marooned—rejecting both the left and what he sees as an authoritarian right—Bundy admits he feels "a little bit alone." Read the full piece at the Atlantic.