Convoys arrived in communities in Arizona, California and Texas early this month to rally for border security. In Eagle Pass, Texas, some community members and experts expressed concerns about the anti-immigrant rhetoric employed by the convoy there.
HEIDI BEIRICH; heidi@globalextremism.org, @heidibeirich, @globalextremism
Beirich is cofounder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE).
America’s Voice held a press call with Beirich and several U.S. Representatives. They called the Take Our Border Back rallies part of an “escalating standoff between Texas and the federal government…fueling a dangerous climate of potential right-wing violence and vigilantism at the border.”
Beirich told the Institute for Public Accuracy that the America’s Voice press call prompted important reporting––but she wished the coverage had been there already. “People should have been watching this. It’s a far-right movement that has gone under the radar, and it shouldn’t have, given [Texas Governor Greg] Abbott’s anti-immigrant rhetoric.” Beirich pointed to the convoy’s use of Great Replacement rhetoric, a “conspiracy theory directly connected to mass violence. [GPAHE] does monitoring of unregulated social media platforms like Gab and Telegram, and [saw] that Great Replacement rhetoric spiked to heights not seen in six months. They are radicalizing the MAGA movement into anti-immigrant rhetoric. Abbott is doing his part to demonize the immigrant situation. It’s dangerous––not just for migrants but for anyone [the far right] thinks might be an immigrant.”
Beirich noted that the convoy was smaller than expected and “thankfully peaceable.” But an Eagle Pass migrant center was evacuated after militia groups involved in the Take Our Borders Back rally threatened the facility. Approximately 175 migrants were relocated to other facilities around Texas after a militia member “threatened to torch the Eagle Pass site.”
Beirich says the convoy is “riling up the far right.”
GPAHE covers transnational hate movements––especially in countries that don’t get as much attention for their far-right movements, such as Portugal, Ireland and Australia––as well as U.S. groups that export hate to other countries, usually in the form of anti-LGBTQ and anti-women’s-rights thinking about bodily autonomy and abortion. Beirich told the Institute for Public Accuracy that “the American press hasn’t done a good enough job [covering] Christian nationalists or the [groups like] Alliance Defending Freedom” in particular. These organizations have “gotten a pass,” she said, “given that their angle is to transform this country––or, at a minimum, to pull back the civil rights of certain populations like LGBTQ [people] and women.” She also pointed to the need for more coverage of people living in the Eagle Pass community who have spoken out about the convoy.
