Border residents fear more violence after ‘invasion’ rhetoric by Texas politicians

EL PASO — Border residents will celebrate Juneteenth on Saturday by pushing back against what critics see as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s inflammatory anti-immigrant rhetoric, dismissing it as mere political theater that endangers their community.

“The words by Governor Abbott are very unfortunate because it’s a part of a political game to energize his conservative base by calling for more walls and using words like ‘invasion,’” said Fernando Garcia, executive director of the Border Network for Human Rights, which is organizing the event. “But it’s also a dangerous narrative that puts a lot of families at the border at risk.”

On Saturday, Garcia and his network will host a number of El Paso immigrant rights activists, political and religious leaders and migrants at the eighth “Hugs not Walls” event. For a few minutes, undocumented immigrants will be allowed to reunite with their Mexican relatives at the Rio Grande, under the watchful eyes of U.S. immigration authorities.

The gathering this year is taking place on Juneteenth, with plans for Black and Mexican American leaders to speak at the same event. President Joe Biden signed legislation Thursday making Juneteenth a federal holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States.

“This is done intetionally to show unity in our struggles as brown and Black communities,” Garcia said. “We will come together in a much-needed space in search of solidarity, hope, love, humanity and care for our maligned communities.”

The gathering, expected to draw hundreds, comes as political rhetoric about migration and the border heats up in Austin and beyond. Later this month, former President Donald Trump, who made a border wall his signature campaign promise, plans to visit the border at the invitation of Abbott. Republicans across the country have unloaded on the Biden administration for creating what they say is a “crisis,” an increase in the number of migrants arriving at the border to a level not seen in 20 years.

This week, Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, both Republicans, took a page out of Trump’s playbook and likened those arrivals to an invasion.

Abbott wants a wall and wants Americans to pay for it, with a $250 million down payment in state money and a crowdsourcing campaign. But Texas doesn’t have jurisdiction to enforce immigration laws because they are the sole responsibility of the federal government.

Patrick spoke of an invasion while explaining the need for the state to build a wall and arrest migrants on trespassing charges, something immigration experts say is legally questionable.

“We are being invaded. That term has been used in the past, but it’s never been more true,” Patrick said at a Capitol news conference Wednesday to flesh out Abbott’s plan to build a wall.

Abbott cited immigration as one reason he signed a bill into law Thursday that lets people carry handguns in Texas without a license. Invoking the Alamo, the historic San Antonio mission where the signing ceremony took place, Abbott said firearms are needed to defend against attacks.

“The very same principle exists today. Just look at the ranchers who live in South Texas, who are being invaded on a daily basis by people coming across the border,” Abbott said. “They need to have a gun to be able to defend themselves against cartels and gangs and other very dangerous people. There is a need for people to have a weapon to defend themselves.”

The rhetoric from state leaders is further polarizing this sun-kissed border region with its bits of jarring wall that cut through an area long connected by culture, history and economics. The talk and the gun law are worrying residents, who know the possible consequences all too well.

“If people die again, blood will be on your hands,” U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso, said in a statement Wednesday condemning Abbott’s and Patrick’s remarks.

Abbott’s office didn’t directly answer questions about his rhetoric. Instead, his spokeswoman, Renae Eze, criticized the Biden administration for “reckless open border policies,” which she said “have led to a crisis along our southern border.” Patrick’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Before Abbott, a We Build The Wall group that touted its ties to Trump organized a private effort to crowdfund a border wall. It didn’t go well. The effort raised more than $25 million and constructed about 3 miles of fence, including at Sunland Park, N.M., on the border with Texas. Last year, four people involved in the project, including Steve Bannon, a top former Trump adviser, were charged with defrauding hundreds of donors. Trump later pardoned Bannon.

The online fundraising effort in the summer of 2019 referred to an “invasion” of migrants. Its last live event, which featured Donald Trump Jr., came just days before the Aug. 3, 2019, mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso. A shooter targeting Mexicans drove about 650 miles in 10 hours from North Texas to kill 23 people at the store. He wrote that he intended to stop the “Hispanic invasion of Texas.”

The grim anniversary is just weeks away, and some El Pasoans who witnessed the shooting, or lost relatives, continue to cope with trauma from the massacre, fighting through anxiety and depression and against apathy. It was the worst attack against Mexican Americans in modern history.

Many residents say they feel their binational culture remains misunderstood and they worry about more anti-Mexican violence.

Adria Gonzalez was in the Walmart when the shots rang out, and she mobilized people to help her mother and dozens of other shoppers to safety. Inside her home is a framed certificate — signed by Abbott — recognizing her as a “Yellow Rose of Texas” for her bravery that day.

These days, Gonzalez has mixed feelings about Abbott. If anyone needs and wants border security, it’s the people who live on the border, she said. But like many others, she feels that permitless guns and walls are not the way to do it.

“There’s still hate. There’s still racism,” and her community remains a “piñata,” she said. “I think things have gotten worse.”

“We don’t need walls. We need education,” she said. “We don’t need permitless guns. We need gun control. … Don’t they understand what happened at Walmart that Saturday morning when this sick young man came? How can Governor Abbott say we don’t need a permit? Yes, we do. Hasn’t he seen the news? What’s happening in Austin?”

Gonzalez recalled how last Saturday she was on the phone with her niece, a student at the University of Texas at Austin, advising her where to run after a mass shooting downtown that day, just as Gonzalez had run the morning of the El Paso shootings.

Gonzalez broke down in tears and walked away to her bedroom as she recounted that day, returning with a black T-shirt she had worn at the Walmart. It was emblazoned with a picture of the Mexican wrestler El Santos, the Saint. She hasn’t worn it since.

“Don’t forget what happened here,” she said. “Let’s not forget this.”

After the mass shooting in El Paso in 2019 and one the same month in Midland-Odessa, Abbott and Patrick seemed willing to consider tightening gun laws. But they backed off this year after their party kept control of the Legislature.

Instead, a slew of bills were passed further loosening the state’s already permissive gun laws. Barely any of the gun safety bills pushed by El Paso lawmakers became law. Few got a public hearing.

Abbott has faced outcry before for his rhetoric about immigration. A campaign mailer that called on supporters to “defend” Texas at the border was dated a day before the shooter drove to El Paso. As he sat next to Patrick at a safety commission meeting in El Paso on Aug. 29, 2019, Abbott conceded before El Paso lawmakers that “mistakes were made and a course correction has been made. And I emphasize the importance of making sure that rhetoric will not be used in any dangerous way, and we will make sure we work collaboratively.”

One of the migrants who will be at the Hugs Not Walls event on Saturday is María Cecilia Rueda Pacheco, 41. She cleans houses in El Paso and has worked the fields in Texas and New Mexico. She hasn’t seen her father, Jose, 76, in 10 years. He is partly paralyzed and traveled from Fresnillo, in Mexico’s Zacatecas state, for 12 hours by bus. She’s eager to see him.

“It makes me angry and sad to see that the government never sees all the hard work we do, only because we do not have a legal status,” said Rueda. “We put food on the table for everyone. We clean houses, and we do all the jobs that U.S. citizens don’t want to do.”

She worries about a growing anti-immigrant mood in the country and fears for her own safety.

“I am afraid that someone will shoot me because of my skin color, my accent, or my race,” Rueda said. “This man [Abbott] is giving the green light to any crazy person to own a gun and shoot an immigrant.”