Maine lawmakers are scrambling to address an encampment being allegedly built by a well-known neo-Nazi group in a small rural town about 40 miles from the Canadian border.
The group, which goes by the name Blood Tribe, is led by former U.S. Marine Christopher Pohlhaus.
Mr. Pohlhaus, who wears a large metal Swastika attached to a chain around his neck among his many anti-Semitic tattoos, has suggested in video posts on alternative media such as Telegram, that the group’s main target in Maine is the large group of immigrants expected to enter the rural New England states over the course of the next few years.
Earlier this month, he and members of another Neo-Nazi group stood in front of the Maine capital in Augusta holding a sign that said, “Keep New England White.”
Under her recently created New Americans plan, Maine Gov. Janet Mills announced this month her administration’s plans to “attract” 75,000 more migrants to the northern New England state for work purposes, which translates into more than 5 percent of Maine’s entire 1.3 million population.
In videos recently obtained by the Counter Extremism Project, Mr. Pohlhaus also can be heard yelling at Somali migrants in Portland, Maine, who were staging their own protests demanding better food and housing conditions.
In the video, Mr. Pohlhaus can be heard shouting: “Leave my state' and ”You don’t want to wait until Mainers give us the green light.”
A bipartisan group of Maine lawmakers have called for new legislation that would allow them to oust Mr. Pohlhaus and Blood Tribe from the state and prevent new groups from buying property.
“The hate coming from groups like the one in Springfield has no place here in Maine or anywhere in our nation. It runs counter to the values of everyday Americans and should be confined to the walls of a mental institution or jail cell instead of the open fields of our state,” Senate Republican leader Trey Stewart said in a released statement to The Epoch Times on Aug. 23.
Maine Democrat leaders have made similar comments.
Currently, according to Sen. Stewart, Maine does have an explicit prohibition against any organized paramilitary group or militia.
According to a March report by the Anti-Defamation League, Maine has become a main target for a host of neo-Nazi groups—like NSC-131—also increasing their presence throughout Maine and other New England states including New Hampshire.
Mr. Pohlhaus began buying land in Springfield, Maine, in 2021 and based on deeds and published reports, his group has amassed about 100 acres.
He has said in social media posts that he is building a “white only community” in Maine.
The state is the second whitest state per capita in the United States. The first is neighboring Vermont followed by neighboring New Hampshire.
The Epoch Times has been unable to make contact with Mr. Pohlhaus.
In addition to denouncing migrants and non-whites, Mr. Pohlhaus and his group has also denounced women’s rights and the LGBT community.
Last year, Mr. Pohlhaus and Blood Tribe members made national news for showing up at a protest against a drag queen event in Ohio armed with guns.
He also posted a sniper training video about shooting truckers to cripple the American food supply and led a counter protest against the murder of George Floyd. He has also expressed sympathy for Ukraine and has been linked to a Russian-based anti-Putin extremist group.
While he has been labeled as a right-wing extremist by liberals, most conservatives have distanced if not denounced Mr. Pohlhaus and his supporters.
Army veteran Kristofer Goldsmith, who started an undercover organization to infiltrate neo-Nazi groups like Polhaus’s Blood Tribe, recently said in a taped video statement that their main target for recruits are veterans living in rural white states like Maine.
“I’ve watched a lot of friends and other veterans really go off the deep end, taking stuff they saw off social media,” Mr. Goldsmith, founder of Task Force Butler Institute, recently told NBC-affiliate News Center Maine.
“They became obsessed with it, and it became their life.”
Mr. Goldsmith did not respond to inquiries from The Epoch Times. He has publicly defended President Joe Biden against attacks from former President Donald Trump.
The Bangor Daily News in Maine recently reported observing Mr. Pohlhaus’s group building rudimentary cabins on the property out of harvested timber from their land.
Mr. Pohlhaus posted on Telegram that he was “proud of my boys working till dusk at the camp and we are seeing results.”
CBS Maine affiliate WGME13 recently reported that Mr. Pohlahus also posted that he had a sawmill on site and was, therefore, able to build “very quickly.”
Springfield tax collector Nicole Lee told the TV station that Mr. Pohlhaus would need a permit to build any structures on the property.
The Epoch Times reached out to Springfield Code Enforcement Officer Dwight Tilton, but received no response.
Town records show that no building permit has been issued for any of the properties that are owned by Mr. Pohlhaus and Blood Tribe members.
Chief Deputy John Knappe of the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office told The Epoch Times that while his department has received calls from local residents concerned about the presence of Mr. Pohlhaus and his Blood Tribe there have been no incidents involving the group.
“People who live in town definitely don’t like that they are here,” he said, but so far, they have done nothing that has involved law enforcement.”
He said law enforcement also has to “tread lightly” with hate groups because they do have First Amendment rights.
Some Maine residents spoke out against the alarm lawmakers have sounded against Mr. Pohlhaus in social media posts and in comments sections to local news stories.
However, when The Epoch Times went back to review the comments, they were deleted.
“Who scrubbed all the comments on this article?!!,” asked one commenter on the Bangor Daily News website.
Before migrating to Maine, Mr. Pohlhaus’s group built an encampment in Washington state, also near the Canadian border.
Canada has become a major entry point for immigrants.
Last week, at a Ron DeSantis appearance for a campaign event in New Hampshire, a resident told the Florida Governor—who is running for United States president—that New England states where experiencing a “northern border” crisis involving the entry of illegal immigrants similar to the more publicized “southern border” influx of illegal border crossers.
DeSantis responded by saying immigrants are flying up to Canada to enter the United States illegally by using its northern borders.
Chief Deputy John Knappe said his agency is contending with a dramatic rise in crimes related to the flood of illegal drugs into northern Maine under the Biden administration’s open borders.
“It used to be that 80 percent of our homicides were domestic related, now it’s less than 50 percent,” he said.
