Texas border showdown is far-right magnet, hate trackers warn -

EAGLE PASS, Tex. — A motley crew is gathering here this weekend: militia-style groups invoking 1776 and the Civil War. Christian nationalists praying for the chance to confront evil. Racists stoking fear about the “replacement” of White people. Election deniers, anti-vaccination crusaders, conspiracy theorists.

And, at the center, a prominent Republican figure whose fiery rhetoric acts as a magnet.

Right-wing extremists are dusting off the blueprint for the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol and using it to rally support for their cause du jour: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s showdown with the federal government over border enforcement. Monitoring groups warn that Abbott’s posturing, like Trump’s “Stop the Steal” effort, heightens the risk of political violence as supporters converge on Eagle Pass, a frontier outpost of 28,000.

Summed up by one observer as “slow-motion secession,” the unrest in Texas is a case study in how once-fringe ideologies have been laundered into mainstream Republican politics.

On Friday, Abbott posted on social media that Texas “will not back down.” For weeks, his statements have included menacing-sounding messages saying that he’s “declared an invasion,” and would use “unprecedented action” to stop illegal crossings.

Civil rights groups were outraged when Abbott, asked by a radio interviewer about the maximum pressure he could use at the border, replied: “The only thing that we’re not doing is we’re not shooting people who come across the border, because of course, the Biden administration would charge us with murder.”

Extremism researchers warn that Abbott’s stand against federal orders is communicated in language that glorifies vigilantism and promotes white supremacist talking points, the latest example of the GOP’s hard-right swing in the Trump era.

“This rhetoric, combined with Texas’s standoff with the federal government, is applauded by the same far-right movements that engage in hate crimes, domestic terrorism and were prominent at the January 6 insurrection,” said Heidi Beirich of the nonprofit Global Project Against Hate and Extremism. “All of this should give us pause.”

Abbott’s rebellion began last month when he seized control of Shelby Park in Eagle Pass, on the banks of the Rio Grande, and shut out U.S. Border Patrol agents who had long used the area as a staging point. Supporters praised him for taking a stand against illegal crossings they describe as at “invasion” levels. Detractors viewed the move as inhumane and a dangerous overreach of state power.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ordered Abbott to allow Border Patrol to remove or cut razor wire barriers that prevent agents from reaching the river to help migrants in distress. Instead, Abbott is installing more wire, his defiance backed by 25 Republican governors who signed a letter of support. Trump, who is sailing toward the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, also boosted Abbott, writing on Truth Social that Texas “must be given full support to repel the invasion.”

Abbott and other GOP leaders use the same tropes about migrants as white-power groups and frequently echo the racist “great replacement theory,” which imagines the engineered replacement of White people in western societies. Hate trackers say violent movements have wasted little time in seizing on the political opening.

Beirich said her center’s research team has “documented an online explosion of invasion and great replacement rhetoric” related to Texas and has observed how white supremacists, Proud Boys and other extremist groups are “taking advantage of the standoff to push their propaganda and recruit new members.”

Texas Proud Boys factions have shared posts referring to “brown immigrant invaders” and urging followers to “grab your guns.” Beirich said a neo-Nazi network issued a rallying cry “asking for White men to join the resistance” in Texas.

Concerns this weekend are focused on a “Take Back Our Border” caravan of right-wing activists — billing themselves as “God’s army” — heading to Texas before planned stops in other states along the southern border. Organized mainly online, the convoy is what extremism researchers see as a microcosm of the modern-day American right: angry at the federal government, hostile toward marginalized groups, and tolerant of violent rhetoric about political enemies.

Devin Burghart of the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, a nonprofit focused on threats to democracy, traced the paramilitary connections of convoy organizers, linking them to movements that took up arms in previous standoffs with the federal government or had a role in the Capitol attack.

“From the convoy’s steering committee on down, the protest comprises many of the same dangerous elements as the January 6 insurrection,” Burghart said, referring to far-right umbrella movements.

The convoy left from Virginia Beach, Va., on Monday in what Vice News, which is closely monitoring the movement, described as “a sad start” of just a couple dozen vehicles, nowhere near the 700,000 figure some participants had touted. Momentum has since picked up, however, with 100 or more vehicles joining as the caravan headed southwest to Texas.

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There’s no telling how many people will join Abbott’s showdown over the next couple of days. Such right-wing mobilizations often collapse at the last minute — some participants get cold feet, others give in to paranoia that the entire event is a setup by federal agents to entrap “patriots.” Whether the rallies erupt or fizzle, extremism researchers say, the consequences will outlast the weekend.

“I’m less concerned about this particular stunt,” Burghart said, “and more concerned about the long-term implications of this type of rhetoric becoming a reality.”

‘Revival’ of the right

Convoy organizers reject the extremist label and insist they are making efforts to ensure the weekend is violence-free. Participants have been asked not to bring long guns, for example, though sidearms are fine.

Anson Bills, a convoy organizer affiliated with Cornerstone Children’s Ranch in Quemado, Tex., a nonprofit hosting one of the weekend events, said he met with “extremely welcoming” officials from the Texas Department of Public Safety and provided them with a list of more than a dozen individuals and groups that were banned from the convoy and who, if they show up, will be removed by security.

Since the Jan. 6 prosecutions, Bills said, “people have been scared” to stage big rallies. This moment, he said, offers the chance for a relaunch with a focus on border enforcement, a unifying point for the right.

“It’s about time,” said Bills, speaking Thursday afternoon at the ranch, where preparations were underway for the convoy arrival.

At the compound’s front gate Thursday afternoon, a white-haired guitarist played the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” to welcome guests. American, Israeli and Christian flags hung on three poles. Posters bearing Bible verses and patriotic messaging hung from the colorful walls. Sloppy joes and hot dogs were on the menu; bottles of iced tea were stacked near the back of the room. A fully stocked medical bay boasted a stretcher-like bed and first-aid supplies.

Pointing to the grassy spot where a stage will be erected for speakers and preachers, Bills said he envisioned the event as a “revival.”

The caravan expected Friday has grown to 5 miles long, he said. Organizers obtained a permit for convoy truckers to park their vehicles along a country road next to an irrigation canal that supplies water to the surrounding farms and ranches.

Since 2021, Bills, also a Republican Party official in Uvalde County, has used the Cornerstone Children’s camp as a base for freelance “security services” offered to residents living along a busy river crossing point about 20 miles northwest of Eagle Pass.

There, Bills said, he and other volunteers solicit permission from landowners to patrol river-adjacent properties that routinely fall victim to break-ins and car thefts. They “fill in the gaps” left open by law enforcement. He calls it a civilian patrol; extremism monitors call it an example of right-wing paramilitary groups appointing themselves border security.

Bills drew distinctions between the volunteers he works with and other militia-style formations, saying they’re not “running around with long rifles and camouflage,” and make sure to pass on tips to law enforcement agencies.

“I see this as a humanitarian mission,” Bills said. “And a constitutional one.”

But some militia-style factions that support Abbott’s stand in principle are staying away from the rallies and are encouraging other groups to do the same.

Sam Hall, leader of the Texas-based Patriots for America militia group, cited Jan. 6 as a cautionary tale about what can happen when “a few bad actors” take over an otherwise peaceful rally. Speaking in a Facebook live video, Hall said violence this weekend would “hand the Biden regime the narrative they so desperately want” in an election year.

“If that powder keg explodes, it’s going to explode right in the face of the right,” Hall warned.

Fearing an influx of anti-immigrant protesters, some Latino rights groups are recommending security precautions to local communities. Citing Abbott’s “inciteful political rhetoric,” the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the nation’s oldest Hispanic civil rights group, urged members in Texas to “be on alert for armed out-of-state extremists with a hate agenda.”

Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Tex.) represents El Paso, where the threat of hate-fueled violence is not hypothetical. In 2019, a gunman espousing great replacement theory and a desire to stop what he called a “Hispanic invasion” opened fire on a Walmart crowded with Latino shoppers, killing 23 in the deadliest attack on Latinos in U.S. history.

Escobar, on a call Thursday with reporters, said she hears Republican colleagues using the same “invasion” language as the killer in everyday business on Capitol Hill.

“Because it is in the halls of power, because it is in committee hearings, because it is coming from the mouths of some of the most powerful politicians in our country, it is being normalized,” she said. “And we have to stop that.”

Molly Hennessy-Fiske contributed to this report.

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