Washington, DC – Today, Texas Governor Greg Abbott officially declared that Texas is being “invaded” and invoked Constitutional authorities. He wrote: “I invoked the Invasion Clauses of the U.S. & Texas Constitutions to fully authorize Texas to take unprecedented measures to defend our state against an invasion.” However, Texas is not being invaded. Abbott is instead taking the deadly white nationalist conspiracy about a so-called migrant “invasion” literally, invoking the same lie as the El Paso mass murder.
According to Zachary Mueller, Political Director at America’s Voice:
“The Governor of Texas is taking a white nationalist conspiracy theory that has inspired multiple domestic terrorist attacks and making it official state policy by declaring migrants to be a literal invading force. In 2019, a Texas man murdered 23 people in El Paso, Texas in an act of domestic terrorism, which he believed would stop the “Hispanic invasion.” After three years and another terrorist attack in Buffalo, New York inspired by “invasion” paranoia, Gov. Abbott is fully embracing this deadly racist lie and giving it a governmental imprimatur. Gov. Abbott is fully aware that his actions today could have deadly downstream consequences as another well-armed Texan, like the El Paso shooter, might hear him call migrants a literal invasion and take it upon himself to ‘take matters into his own hands.’
To try to position himself for a 2024 presidential bid, Greg Abbott is actively courting deadly political violence in his state and trying to keep pace with Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis to define himself as the most aggressively anti-immigrant Republican 2024 contender before all the ballots from 2022 have even been counted. We hear a lot of violent and dangerous demagoguing from Republicans, but the one thing we never hear is an offer of solutions. Plenty of stunts, never solutions or offers to work with the Biden administration. And except for in isolated states and among certain MAGA base voters, immigration as the central focus of Republican campaigns in 2022 was a disaster for the GOP and reinforced the perception of voters of Republicans as extreme.
Anyone who cares about the American promise of a multi-racial democracy and about basic public safety should loudly and forcefully condemn Abbott’s actions here and that is especially the case if you call yourself a Republican.”
