Abbott slammed for letter’s rhetoric
GOP strategists see no problem with mailer Democrats call racist
Days after a gunman opened fire at an El Paso Walmart and killed 22 people in the deadliest attack on Latinos in modern U.S. history, some Texans opened their mailboxes to find a fundraising letter from Gov. Greg Abbott’s campaign.
Dated Aug. 2, the day before the massacre, the letter began: “If we’re going to DEFEND Texas, we’ll need to take matters into our own hands.”
The letter asks for urgent donations so Abbott can fight illegal immigration, which he contends is “ravaging Texas” and will cause a political and economic “disaster” if not stopped.
The letter blames Democrats in Congress for refusing to tackle immigration reform and the media for failing to report on the murders of “innocent young Americans” by people who should “never (have) been in our country in the first place.”
“Unless you and I want liberals to succeed in their plan to transform Texas — and our entire country — through illegal immigration, this is a message we MUST send,” the letter states.
The Texas Democratic Party on Thursday denounced the letter as “racist, anti-Latino and anti-immi
grant,” saying Abbott’s rhetoric was no different from President Donald Trump’s.
“If Greg Abbott ever wonders why there is so much hate and anger toward Mexicans and immigrants, he should take a long look at his rhetoric, policies and now his mailer,” said U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso. “It is my hope that the terror El Paso has endured opens Texans’ eyes. All decent people should repudiate the dehumanizing language and unseemly political tactics employed by politicians like Abbott.”
Abbott’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
The accused El Paso shooter, in an online manifesto posted shortly before the attack, said he planned the shooting in “response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas.” He wrote that he was “simply defending his country from cultural and ethnic replacement,” noting that changing demographics could put Texas — and the rest of the nation — in the hands of Democrats.
The message echoed language used by Trump during his election campaign, when he said Mexico was sending “rapists” and “criminals” to the U.S. More recently, Trump has described the flow of migrants across the southern border as an “invasion.”
Although national attention has largely focused on Trump’s language, some critics have pointed to Texas political leaders as well. Two years before Trump took office in 2017, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick took heat for calling the influx of immigrants an “illegal invasion” and saying they bring “third world diseases.”
In recent weeks, a tea party official in Tarrant County whom Patrick appointed to his 2015 inaugural committee came under fire for comments that echoed white supremacist claims that the flow of migrants amounts to a conspiracy to “replace” whites.
Several GOP strategists said they didn’t see a problem with Abbott’s mailer. They said such language is commonly used to solicit donations from the state’s most committed conservatives.
“The rule in political fundraising is the more sensational you are, the better it’s going to work,” said Rory McShane, a Republican media strategist based in Las Vegas who has worked on campaigns in Texas.
Had the letter focused on the Second Amendment right to bear arms, McShane said, it could be interpreted as “pouring salt in a wound” in the aftermath of a mass shooting. But illegal immigration is a critical issue for GOP voters, McShane said, adding that he saw no connection to the El Paso tragedy.
“I think the story is a nothing story,” McShane said. “Because I guarantee you, somebody received a fundraising from a Democrat that would be equally outrageous, but from the liberal point of view.”
Texas Republican analyst Adryana Aldeen, who immigrated to the U.S. from Mexico, agreed. She said she’s known Abbott for years, noted that he’s married to a Latina and said she sees him as one of the most respected leaders in Texas.
“This is a regular fundraising letter that is focusing on defending Texas because that’s the message of the governor,” Aldeen said, who blamed Democrats for failing to negotiate seriously on immigration reform.
When Republicans are asked to name the most important problem facing the state and country, the most common responses are immigration and border security, said James Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project, which conducts the University of Texas/Texas Tribune polls.
This isn’t news to campaign operatives in the state. Pushing people’s buttons on immigration and border security is a common fundraising tactic, Henson said.
“Restrictive positions and even inflammatory language resonate with the most extreme partisans in their party, even if it’s, to say the least, off-putting to other audiences, particularly Latinos in the state,” Henson said.
Texas Republicans’ approach to immigration has become increasingly hardline, but it wasn’t always that way. Former Gov. Rick Perry was a supporter of a Texas law that grants in-state tuition to immigrants living here illegally. He faced a conservative backlash during the 2012 presidential primary season when he labeled as “heartless” those who opposed the law.
Last year, former President George W. Bush criticized Trump’s stance against the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program, which protects people from deportation if they were brought to the U.S. without documentation as children.
Jeronimo Cortina, associate director of the Center for Mexican American Studies at the University of Houston, has studied how people’s opinions about immigration issues — specifically, the border wall — are shaped by where they live.
He’s found that the closer Republicans live to the border, the less likely they are to support the wall. The farther they live from border communities, the more likely they are to think a wall is needed.
That research can provide critical context when thinking about how Texans might react to Abbott’s fundraising letter, he said.
“Let’s say you live in Laredo … and you read all these things,” said Cortina. “You say, ‘What’s going on? I live here, and I don’t see this kind of situation.’ ”
But someone in Amarillo might think: “Oh my God, we have a situation down there. Let’s send all this money!” Cortina said.
In the letter, Abbott criticized congressional Democrats, saying that “if law-abiding American citizens are endangered while drug traffickers and violent gangs swarm our border, it’s worth it in their wild rush for political power!” He warned that an economic disaster could befall Texas if illegal immigration isn’t stopped.
Research shows that although there are costs on the local, state and federal levels, immigration is a net positive for the nation’s economy, Cortina said.
Asked about the language in Abbott’s letter, Cortina said: “I cannot make a judgment if it’s good or bad. But it erodes our own fabric of society in how we tend to have civil conversations as human beings, fellow Texans.”