It was only minutes after a four-page hate-filled manifesto appeared online on Aug. 3, 2019, that shots rang out at an El Paso Walmart – shots from an AK-47-style semi-automatic rifle in the hands of a then-21-year-old man.
“This attack is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas,” his manifesto said. “They are the instigators, not me. I am simply defending my country from cultural and ethnic replacement brought on by an invasion.”
For the border community of El Paso, the gunman’s online screed was more than words on a computer screen. Twenty-two people died in the shooting that day, and another victim died months later. Twenty-two others survived gunshot wounds and other injuries. Those who died ranged in age from 15 to 90 – mothers, fathers, sons and daughters – most living in the United States and some in Mexico.
As the victims and survivors are remembered on the fifth anniversary of the shooting this week, community leaders, human rights groups and political experts say the gunman’s words were motivated by dangerous political rhetoric and are not to be forgotten.
The immigration “invasion” rhetoric that started on the right-wing fringe has increasingly become a part of mainstream conservative messaging. Republican lawmakers at various levels of government continue to amplify the message, saying that the terminology is accurate as record numbers of migrants arrive at the Southwest border.
A plaque at the El Paso Community Healing Garden National Memorial explains the use of the lotus flower in its design. The lotus symbolizes
serenity, purity, beauty, grace, fertility and knowledge and was designed with 23 loops to honor the 23 victims of the Aug. 3, 2019, mass shooting. (Cindy Ramirez / El Paso Matters)
“Not only has the (invasion rhetoric) problem gone into the mainstream in the five years since the El Paso shooting, but it has gotten significantly worse this past year,” said Zachary Mueller, senior research director with the immigration advocacy organization America’s Voice. “It’s really gone extreme and become a central talking point of the Republican party.”
America’s Voice has tracked the use of the word “invasion” and other political rhetoric connected to white nationalism and the great replacement conspiracy theory for several years. The ethnic or great replacement theory is based on the ideology that white people are being replaced by minorities and migrants.
In the first seven months of 2024 – a presidential election year – 165 members of Congress have pushed the replacement theory more than 650 times on their official social media accounts, the organization reported Thursday. It also tracked more than 300 Republican-aligned political ads that used invasion rhetoric so far this year at a cost of about $30 million – compared to 61 ads costing $5.5 million in all of 2022.
America’s Voice stated that few Republicans had publicly used the language of invasion and other replacement conspiracy rhetoric before the El Paso shooting. Then-President Donald Trump had run more than 2,000 Facebook ads pushing the theory in the months before the attack, the organization said.
Speaking on immigration at the National Association of Black Journalists earlier this week, Trump said, “They’re invading. It’s an invasion of millions of people.”
Months prior to the manifesto of the El Paso Walmart shooter being discovered, Trump spoke at a Florida rally, saying the country was under attack by immigrants. “You look at what is marching up, that is an invasion,” the New York Times reported him saying. “That is an invasion!”
The shooter, Patrick Crusius, now 26, in his manifesto said his views predated Trump, but echoed language used by the former president. Crusius pleaded guilty last year to federal hate crimes and weapons charges and was sentenced to 90 consecutive life prison terms. He also faces state charges of capital murder and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and is due in court in September for a scheduling conference.
A day before the shooting, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott sent out a fundraising letter that asked supporters to defend the border against efforts to “transform” Texas. Abbott later issued an apology.
Irene Armendariz-Jackson, the Republican congressional candidate for El Paso’s District 16, said she stands behind using terminology such as “invasion.”
“Well, the ones that are saying (it’s dangerous rhetoric) are the ones that are allowing the invasion. And what else would we call it when millions of people that are unvetted come into our country?” she said.
Asked if she saw a connection between the El Paso shooter’s manifesto and Republicans’ political language, Armendariz-Jackson said he was going to reserve her opinion.
U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso, who is seeking re-election in November, said she has seen anti-immigrant language grow increasingly dangerous – from election campaigns to the congressional floor.
“It’s incredibly dangerous. It’s reckless and irresponsible, and it is deadly – and El Paso knows that firsthand, unfortunately,” she said. “But the bottom line is, all of these folks using this language, pushing this agenda, they don’t care about what happened to our community. They don’t care about the deaths. They don’t care about the trauma. They don’t care about the pain, and it is infuriating and outrageous and profoundly offensive.”
‘The worst in people’
The rhetoric has grown its reach through social media and has become increasingly tied to replacement theories, said political consultant Brendan Steinhauser, a partner with the Austin-based public affairs firm Steinhauser Strategies that has worked with Texas Republican candidates the past 10 years.
“I do think the political discourse has become more militant and filled with violent images from time to time. I don’t think it’s a healthy trend,” Steinhauser said, adding that he believes social media in particular has brought out “the worst in people.”
“I think that you see a lot of this online, and that you often will see people posting things that are sometimes extremist or hateful,” he said. “So I don’t think that’s good for anybody.”
Armendariz-Jackson said Republicans like her are only stating “the truth” about what’s happening at the border and adding that those who temper their words, especially white people, do so only because they fear being called racist.
The term invasion has been used to describe the record-number of migrants arriving at the Southern border. The vast majority of those coming to the border are doing so for economic reasons or fleeing repression or violence, Escobar said. They are not armed with weapons, as an invading force would be, Mueller added.
The Republican party last month released its 2024 GOP policy platform. First on the 20-point agenda is to seal the border “and stop the migrant invasion.”
Escobar said Republicans continue to mislead voters without acknowledging that it is Congress that has failed to pass comprehensive immigration reform in more than 30 years. A bipartisan border security bill that had gained steam in both parties failed in a procedural vote in the Senate in May after Trump urged Republicans to reject it.
Convenient rhetoric?
Mueller, of America’s Voice, said that while the invasion rhetoric has spread nationwide, it remains strongest in Texas, where Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Sen. Ted Cruz, all Republicans, have used that terminology repeatedly.
In June 2021, for example, the Texas Tribune reported Abbott saying that “homes are being invaded” during a press conference announcing his border wall plans. At that same conference, Patrick said Texas was being invaded and added, “That term has been used in the past, but it has never been more true.”
Mueller said that what Texas is arguing – an invasion – isn’t reality. He said an invasion comprises a “literal military invasion, a coordinated effort to take over (a sovereign nation) forcibly.” He cites “entry plus enmity” as necessary for a true invasion – physical entry into a state and the intent to act as an enemy to it.
“What they have is a convenient rhetoric to dehumanize a group of people for their own political gain,” Mueller said. “Are there a high number of people seeking safety (in the United States) and is it a challenge? Yes, but it’s happening across the globe and it’s not about taking over another country. It’s global migration.”
Mueller said real conversations are needed on immigration and calling it an invasion doesn’t allow for real solutions.
Steinhauser, the political consultant and commentator, said that candidates should be more empathetic when talking about border security and immigration. He said candidates would do better to get across a message that they “see the humanity.”
“They can focus on border security but also get across that they understand the human element,” he said.
Using rhetoric that instead instills fear in people – voters, more directly – is a political tactic, said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston.
“It’s the most dramatic language a politician can use to signal a kind of unstoppable wave of immigration,” said Rottinghaus, who cites the El Paso mass shooting in his Texas politics textbook when talking about political rhetoric and strategy.
“Politics is highly sensitive to people’s fears, and those kinds of emotions motivate voters and the public to pay attention,” Rottinghaus said. “Politicians consistently stoke fear over immigration issues like this, where the visuals are so dramatic and the outcomes are unknown.”
Steinhauser agrees that fear can motivate people to support those candidates who say they can protect them from what scares them.
“So unfortunately, oftentimes people are motivated more by fear and anger than they are by positive, uplifting ideas,” he said.
Influence beyond the ballot box
But how much impact does rhetoric have beyond the ballot box?
Citing the mass shootings in Buffalo in 2022, El Paso in 2019, Pittsburgh in 2018 and Charlottesville in 2017, America’s Voice reports the rhetoric has “inspired multiple domestic terrorists to take the lives of dozens over the last few years.”
“One of the things that’s clear is that political violence doesn’t just happen as a reaction to events or to what politicians say,” Rottinghaus, the political science professor, said. “It’s a combination of factors, most involving that person and their inability to see the world clearly or often, to have a kind of disassociation with the world.”
The issue is that the repeated use of certain rhetoric is normalized, influencing people’s views, Rottinghaus said. And in extreme situations, some people are encouraged to take matters into their own hands.
Steinhauser agrees.
“I think that heated rhetoric and divisive rhetoric and militant messages from a politician can kind of convince some people that the politician wants them to take some further action beyond voting or donating – action that would be out of the normal bounds of the law and decency and normal political activity,” Steinhauser said.
He said that while politicians may not be telling people to go shoot somebody, someone hearing the rhetoric may draw dangerous interpretations.
“They’re drawing that conclusion of, ‘Oh, well, yeah, that’s an enemy of the people, so I better go take action, right? That’s an enemy to my cause,’” he said.
The family of Javier Amir Rodriguez, 15, the youngest person killed in the Aug. 3, 2019, Walmart shooting, visited the makeshift memorial near the store 15 days later. (Kate Gannon/El Paso Matters)
Escobar said that while political rhetoric may not be directing people to take certain actions, making the language commonplace and a political rally slogan has proven to be dangerous.
“Words have power,” Escobar said. “The words we choose to use have incredible power, especially if you have the power of the ‘bully pulpit,’ especially if you have the ability to reach hundreds, thousands, potentially millions, of people.”
Escobar, like Professor Rottighaus and Mueller of America’s Voice, acknowledges that rhetoric alone doesn’t drive someone to engage in political violence. But it could drive people to the polls without being well-informed on the issues, they said.
“My personal belief is that many of these politicians who are using racist, anti-immigrant rhetoric and who are trying to whip up hatred of anyone in this country who looks different from them are only able to do that because their constituents allow it, accept it or encourage it,” Escobar said. “And frankly, it says a lot more to me about the state of our nation than it does about the politicians.”
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