A Border Story

Under Democrat administrations, you better believe that boundaries matter.

I’m not sure if it has raised enough attention to capture the attention of the public, but there is a story floating around about how strongly our federal government is holding on border enforcement.

This intrusion against the American people began during that Biden administration.

The penalties are steep.

It appears to be a case of long-term abuse of a federal border by the parents of a family now living in the United Stated. Finally, these border violator scofflaws are being charged with the possibility of a $250,000 fine – each – and up to ten years in jail for earning money through the theft of federal property.

If found guilty, they will be separated from their two children, who will be taken out of the only home they have known and deported to unfamiliar locations until their parents have pad their debts to American society.

But this story isn’t about illegal immigration and the subsequent lawbreaking by illegal alien parents who beached the border with their two small children.

This is a story of a seventy-five-year-old fence line, a fence line restored in 2003 with the permission of the United States Forest Service. It is a story of American citizens, Charles and Heather Maude, a South Dakota ranch couple, who are fighting federal indictments served to them by a U.S. Forest Service agent who allegedly showed up unannounced on their front steps - armed and in tactical gear. The agent was there to serve them with indictments in a modern-day range war between the ranchers and feds.

According to the federal summons, which was served on June 24, 2024, it charged that the Maudes, “Beginning at a time unknown, but no later than December, 2020…did knowingly steal, purloin and convert to their own use National Grasslands managed by the United States Department of Agriculture, a department and agency of the United States, namely, approximately, 25 acres of National Grasslands for cultivation and approximately 25 acres of National Grasslands for grazing cattle, having a value in excess of $1,000 and did aid and abet each other, all in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 641 and 2.”

Generations of the Maude family have held and paid for grazing rights on this property for as long as the Department of Interior has required them.

South Dakota Senator Mike Rounds, in a letter to Biden’s Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, outlined a timeline of events since USFS special agent Travis Lunders first contacted the Maudes.

Rounds said the following is his understanding of the Maudes’ interaction with the USFS:

• March 29, 2024 – The Maudes were notified of a complaint received by USDA saying a fence between their property and adjacent Buffalo Gap National Grasslands property blocked access to Buffalo Gap National Grasslands.

• May 1, 2024 – The Maudes met with USFS District Ranger Julie Wheeler to discuss a boundary discrepancy regarding the fence line. USFS special agent Travis Lunders was also present. The USFS and Maudes agreed that a survey should be completed, which could take up to a year, but following the completion of the survey there were three possible administrative steps that could be taken.

• May 6, 2024 – Special Agent Lunders escorted a crew to perform a survey of the land. The Maudes did not participate in the survey and did not receive survey results.

• June 24, 2024 – The Maudes were summoned to appear in U.S. District Court, having been indicted for theft of government property.

“This action represents a direct conflict to an agreed upon plan, wherein the landowners were working cooperatively with the USFS to resolve the issue,” said the Rounds letter.

This is over 25 acres that has been under private fence for 75 years – with the knowledge of the Department of the Interior.

Imagine if any Democrat administration had taken as hard a stance against the literal theft of American citizenship by illegal aliens as they have over an acre of land in that in that part of the state is enough to support the grazing of one cow. Compare and contrast this family, a family that did not participate in the construction of the original fence (because they weren’t even alive) and how they are being persecuted for something they have agreed to resolve, against the treatment of illegal aliens during the Biden administration who were given free health care, free housing, mobile phones and debit cards at the cost of billions of taxpayer dollars.

This is in the hands of the Trump administration now – if there is any justice, Pam Bondi and Doug Burgum will get together and get these cases dismissed and resolve this equitably.