Gavin Seim of Ephrata now a refugee in Mexico

Libertarian activist, filmmaker and former congressional candidate Gavin Seim was recently granted refugee status in Mexico and has no plans to return to the States, he said in an interview Thursday.

A final recognition letter sent to the Herald by Seim appears to confirm that COMAR, or the Mexican Refugee Aid Commission, granted refugee status to Seim, his wife and five children in October. Seim said in an interview that legal permanent residency was issued to himself and his family in January based on that October resolution.

Seim’s immigration status comes two and a half years after he fled south of the border rather than appear in court in late 2017 on charges of interfering with an Ephrata police officer during a traffic stop.

In videos posted to Facebook at the time, Seim claimed that on Aug. 17, 2017, he confronted Ephrata police officer Patrick Canady, who had stopped a woman in the Walmart parking lot, took out his phone and began recording. He stated that the officer was harassing the woman and that he ordered the officer to return to his patrol vehicle.

Seim reportedly returned to his vehicle, where he was arrested on charges of harassment and obstruction of justice and his phone was seized as evidence. The phone became a key sticking point in the criminal case that followed: Seim contended that the device was taken without a warrant and that he was legally allowed to film Canady as the officer was on a traffic stop in the Walmart parking lot.

Prosecutors had argued that exceptions in the law allowed the phone to be seized during the arrest, and received a warrant to search the digital contents of the phone, arguing Seim’s video of the incident was needed evidence. But the phone was password-protected, and Seim refused to unlock the phone. During an interview, Seim stated he believed prosecutors couldn’t be trusted not to falsify evidence if they were able to access the device.

“The unlocking of the phone, and the whole case I was dealing with when I left was just a line in the sand,” Seim said in an interview.

Seim was scheduled to appear in court in November 2017, where he was expected to represent himself pro se. Instead, he packed up his family and drove to Mexico, where he has been living ever since. In a video posted from Tepic, Mexico, Seim said that prosecutors “do not care about the law,” and referred to local law enforcement as “these insane, mentally ill psychopaths who use people who hold a gun to our heads and then say, ‘We are the law.’”

Saying he feared prosecution due to his political beliefs, Seim said that Mexican officials granted his refugee application under the auspices of political asylum.

The Grant County Prosecutor’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

By the time of his 2017 arrest, Seim already had a longstanding history of recording confrontations with police, and has posted videos of those confrontations since at least 2014 that have collectively been viewed tens of millions of times.

In one such video, Seim in 2014 videotaped a Grant County Sheriff’s Deputy whom he criticized for driving in an unmarked patrol car in violation of state law. In a statement, Grant County Sheriff Tom Jones acknowledged the violation but noted that it carried no criminal or civil penalties.

Seim had also had previous encounters with Canady, having posted a video of the officer during a traffic stop several months prior to Seim’s August arrest. Seim said in videos that he believed that his arrest was motivated by “vengeance.”

“I think frankly this is a vengeance thing for Canady. He saw an opportunity to get even because his thuggery is exposed. Right, because people know that he is a robber and a thief and an extortioner and a kidnapper for a living,” Seim had said in a video at the time.

Seim has previously referred to police as “Blue ISIS” and sells T-shirts emblazoned with that phrase, as well as another one that reads “Keep your cops, I feel safer with the crackhead.”

2017 was not Seim’s first arrest as a result of his confrontations with law enforcement. In 2015, he was arrested for interfering with a court, disorderly conduct and contempt of court after attempting to intervene in the trial of a Douglas County man. Seim had reportedly argued with the judge in that case to allow him to represent the defendant, despite not being an attorney, leading to a dispute that ended in Seim’s arrest.

Seim’s political activism with police didn’t end as he sought political asylum in a foreign country: In videos posted as recently as last week, Seim records his confrontations with Mexican police, a staple of his online content since he departed the U.S.

Seim has previously garnered political attention with his 2014 run for a congressional seat that was ultimately won by Rep. Dan Newhouse. Seim received around 2.5 percent of the vote during the primary. He was also a notable figure in the 2016 occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.