Washington, DC — In a new op-ed for El Paso Matters, Mario Carrillo, Campaigns Director for America’s Voice and El Paso resident, reflects on the 2019 El Paso shooting and the dangerous impact of dehumanizing immigration rhetoric. In a series of recent interviews, the defense attorney for the El Paso gunman reveals the shooter’s belief he was carrying out Trump’s agenda to combat the “invasion” of Texas. Despite this ongoing reminder about the real world dangers of mainstreaming dehumanizing and dangerous conspiracies, Carrillo explains how the same “invasion” language and justification is being used by the Trump administration to underpin much of its anti-immigrant and mass deportation agenda.
The op-ed comes as new reporting from the Washington Post further calls into question Trump’s repeated claims of an “invasion” at the southern border. The story reveals that President Trump’s own National Intelligence Council, “drawing on the acumen of the United States’ 18 intelligence agencies, determined in a secret assessment early this month that the Venezuelan government is not directing an ‘invasion’ of the United States,” directly undercutting the claims and justifications of President Trump.
Below, read key excerpts from Mario Carrillo’s op-ed in El Paso Matters: “El Paso’s Mass Shooting is Proof of the Impact of Words. Trump and Republicans Don’t Care”
“In politics, words are not just words — they are tools, weapons and blueprints. When President Trump and other elected leaders refer to immigration at the southern border as an ‘invasion,’ they are not merely using metaphor, but creating an ideological battleground in which violence becomes not only justifiable to some, but necessary.
“Now, years later, the El Paso gunman’s defense attorney has explicitly stated that his client believed he was ‘doing Trump’s work’ by stopping the so-called ‘Hispanic invasion,’ and points to that exact rally in Florida as his breaking point and when he decided to purchase his firearms.
“This is not a fringe interpretation of Trump’s language — it is a logical endpoint. When a political leader repeatedly uses dehumanized and militarized language like ‘invasion’ or ‘infestation,’ going as far as saying that immigrants are ‘poisoning the blood’ of America… it encourages people to believe they are under siege and must respond with force.
“We’re fewer than 100 days into his second administration, and his campaign promises of mass deportations are becoming a reality… it’s become a real threat to due process and the rule of law.
“Most of the migrants who have been sent to El Salvador without due process have been summarily deported using an archaic wartime act that was last used primarily on Americans of Japanese descent who were sent to U.S. internment camps during World War II.
“Clearly, the nearly six years since the violence in El Paso have not made Republicans, and especially those in Trump’s orbit, rethink how they talk about immigrants, and the dehumanization is simply a tactic to make their cruelty seem more palatable.”
