23 people were killed in five years into racially motivated El Paso, Texas, Walmart mass shooting, leaders of hate, immigration and anti-Semitic groups say the inflammatory rhetoric that motivated their killer has deteriorated and become normalized.
Families of those killed and 22 others injured will mark the horrific anniversary of the gunman’s 700-mile journey on Saturday. Targeting Mexicans – as he told police after the shooting — ended the lives of spouses, children, family members and friends.
Before filming, The gunman posted a screenshot on the Internet saying the shooting was his response to the “Hispanic invasion of Texas” and the replacement of whites by immigrants, echoing the “great replacement” conspiracy theory promoted by white racists.
Paul Jamrowski, the father of Jordan Anchondo, who died protecting their then 2-month-old son with his wife Andre Anchondo, said he will spend the day “remembering them, remembering them, the people they were.”
But because of the gag order in the state case against the shooter, Jarowski said he could not discuss the gunman’s motives. The shooter was sentenced to 90 consecutive life terms after pleading guilty last year to federal charges, including hate crime charges. He still faces state charges.
The city’s open wounds are festering as then-President Donald Trump’s language described the border as down before the massacre. “occupation” and the nation under attack has spread and is now growing stronger, leaders of several organizations, including Human Rights First, the Human Rights Border Network, the Jewish Council on Public Affairs and VOA, said in a press call Thursday.
At the Republican National Convention, delegates chanted “Mass Deportation Now” every night. Trump continues to criticize the border “invasion” and he echoes a phrase used by Adolf Hitler, saying that immigrants “We are poisoning the blood of our country.” “Seal the border and stop the migrant invasion” is the call The first of 20 items listed in the platform of the Republican Party.
Since the racist El Paso massacre, Trump has been joined by a chorus of others, mostly Republicans, using the same language, said Thomas Saenz, president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund and general counsel for the civil rights group.
“We see more talk of occupation than we did then. There is certainly more anti-immigration talk than Trump himself,” Saenz said.
On Wednesday, Trump told an audience at the National Association of Black Journalists conference that people crossing the US southern border would get “Black jobs.”
“…they are taking jobs away from black people. They come in, they come in, occupy,” he said.
NBC News reached out to the Trump campaign.
In response to the mass shooting in El Paso, MALDEF created a new program expand litigation and advocacy trying to enter anti-Latino hate crimesincluding discriminatory police policies.
Following the escalating rhetoric
Gunman kills 10 in racist mass shooting at Buffalo, New York grocery store Where he targets black people in 2022, he also posted a display of what he referred to as the “grand replacement theory”.
VOA, an immigrant advocacy group, is tracking what it calls normalization of the occupation and grand replacement rhetoric by members of Congress.
In the five years since the El Paso mass shooting, 165 current members of Congress have ramped up the replacement theory and occupation rhetoric, said VOA senior research director Zachary Mueller. referring to the report prepared by the group.
Also, in the first seven months of this year, members of Congress have floated the theory of invasion and grand replacement more than 650 times on their social media accounts, and introduced 11 bills using “invasion” rhetoric. According to Mueller, they used rhetoric in 302 ads, spending $30 million in the first six months of this year, compared to all 61 ads in 2022.
Mueller noted that the FBI said this week that a social media account with anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant posts may be linked to the shooter who attempted to assassinate Trump.
“Five years later, a bigoted conspiracy theory fueled by deadly hatred continues to threaten our public safety and American democracy and must be condemned with urgency,” Mueller said.
Trump and Republicans have pushed border crossings and immigration as a centerpiece of President Joe Biden’s 2024 election campaign.
Surveys showed support is increasing for a tougher border policy aincluding voters Spaniardsas more communities have had to shelter and respond to people crossing the border, including they took to their cities. He had to deal with some communities migrants on the streets when shelters are full or supplies are depleted.
But MALDEF’s Saenz said “rational people recognize that you have to separate legal immigration policy from dangerous demonizing rhetoric.”
“There’s a responsible way to advocate for border policy change that doesn’t include demonizing people who are migrants,” he said.
As the rhetoric continues, Saenz said he and others are concerned.
“The use of occupation rhetoric should be seen as a national problem. Many countries see it as a problem elsewhere, not here,” he said. “As we saw with the Walmart crimes, it went too far.”
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