At Rally for Border Security in Texas: Fear of 'invasion' and 'civil war'
A line of trucks and RVs, cars and vans – from South Dakota and North Carolina, Washington and Pennsylvania – snaked along country roads Saturday before gathering on the winter-brown grass of a ranch, just steps from the Rio Grande, in the rural community of Quemado, Texas.
The rally marked the final stop on a days-long journey: a convoy of conservative Americans driving to the border to express their frustration, fear and anger over what they saw as a broken immigration system.
The Quemado location was chosen for its proximity to the town of Eagle Pass, a flashpoint in the standoff over border security and immigration between the Biden administration and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. Other convoys reached the border this week in Yuma, Arizona, and San Ysidro, California, all with the aim of establishing tighter controls on migrants crossing the border.
Concerns about possible violence followed the convoys as the federal government and Republican state leaders appeared increasingly on a collision course. In December, the federal government recorded 302,000 encounters with unauthorized migrants, a record for a month.
Ultimately, the Texas rally — part political protest, part Christian revival — drew a modest crowd to the ranch, without violence breaking out. Many attendees were retired and had decided to make the trip almost spontaneously after hearing about it on social media or the local news.
“We slept in the car,” said George Barton, 73, who chose to join the caravan as it passed through his hometown of Dripping Springs, Texas. He came with his wife, Terrie, 71, who wrote on the side of their white SUV: “Immigration is good! Invasion is bad!” Their 9-year-old dog, Rudy, came too.
“I do know that there are laws and they are not being enforced,” Ms Barton said.
“I appreciate them coming out here,” said Eagle Pass resident Elias Mata, 70, as he walked through the meeting. “I think Greg Abbott is doing the right thing.” He said his wife, who declined to give her name, had emigrated from Mexico. She said she agreed, adding: 'I love USA'
The meeting, over an agricultural road from the Rio Grande and the border with Mexico, came against the backdrop of an intensifying legal battle between Texas and the federal government over the deployment of miles of concertina wire in Eagle Pass and the takeover of a riverbank . municipal park by state law enforcement officers.
The court battle has sparked heated rhetoric, with Mr Abbott and others describing the record number of migrants entering the country as an “invasion”.
After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Texas, saying federal border agents could continue cutting or removing concertina wire while the case continued, many Republican state leaders publicly expressed their opposition in terms that resembled armed conflict.
“Come and take it,” wrote Senator Ted Cruz on social media, borrowing the slogan from a flag flown during the Texas War of Independence, in this case replacing an image of a cannon with concertina wire. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton posted a similar image: adding a silhouette of the Alamo.
Amid the conflict with the federal government last month, an original version of the flag, dating to 1835, flew over the Texas Military Department Headquarters.
At Saturday's rally, several people wore T-shirts with versions of the same slogan and images.
In response to reports of threats of violence against migrants or federal Border Patrol processing centers in Texas, a spokeswoman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Saturday that the agency is “taking appropriate and necessary actions to keep our employees and migrants in our custody safe.”
Some attendees at the Texas rally expressed concern that political divisions in the country could lead to civil war, including one of the organizers, Rod Parker, a revivalist pastor.
“I hope I'm wrong,” Mr. Parker said. “We are here to pray against that.” He then excused himself to help baptize a woman near the stage.
The Republican governors of 25 states said they would stand with Texas in confronting the federal government. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said this week that he would send hundreds of his state's National Guard troops “to assist Texas in its efforts to stop the invasion at its southern border.”
More than a dozen Republican governors were expected to join Abbott on Sunday at Shelby Park, the Eagle Pass park that has become a flashpoint in the conflict.
Democrats as well as immigration and civil rights groups have accused Mr. Abbott and other Republicans of stoking an already heated issue.
“This moment reminds us of what happened on January 6,” said Vanessa Cárdenas, executive director of America's Voice, an immigrant rights group, referring to the storming of the U.S. Capitol by supporters of former President Donald J. Trump.
Over the past two years, Mr. Abbott has steadily expanded his program of state-level enforcement at the border, known as Operation Lone Star. Much of that effort has focused on Eagle Pass, a town of about 28,000 that has become a popular intersection for large groups of migrants during the Biden administration. Most have arrived to surrender to federal agents for processing and possible release into the country.
Later this month, Mr. Abbott will appear in court again to defend his latest expansion of the program: a new law, set to take effect in March, that will allow law enforcement officials across Texas to arrest migrants arriving from Mexico without authorization have crossed. . The Biden administration has filed a lawsuit, arguing that the law violates the federal government's authority over immigration law.
The Texas portion of Saturday's rallies initially focused on Eagle Pass. But organizers decided to hold the meeting instead at the Cornerstone Children's Ranch, about 20 miles (30 kilometers) north of the city, and urged participants not to travel to the city to avoid possible confrontations there.
“We tell people straight up, don't go to Eagle Pass,” said Anson Bills, operations manager at Cornerstone Children's Ranch.
On Saturday, few people seemed interested in making that trip. Many sat in folding chairs and listened to Christian music and speeches. “It's like a Trump rally without Trump,” said Tom Welch, 25, who traveled from St. Louis with his mother.
The overtly religious nature of the meeting was not what some expected, and some seemed a little disappointed. “I was looking for the pagans, but there aren't any,” said Wayne Harris, 75, who traveled from the coastal town of Rockport, Texas. 'I'm in the wrong place. I believe and I pray. But I thought this was going to be a Trump rally.”
Hamed Aleaziz reporting contributed.