Patriot Movement AZ targets Gallego
The office of U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego contacted the U.S. Capitol Police after members of a right-wing group, Patriot Movement AZ, posted photos and video of the Arizona congressman’s Phoenix home on social media and protested outside his property.
Members of the group posted several images on Twitter said to be Gallego’s house, along with messages attacking him for opposing a border wall while living in a gated community, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which reported the posts to Gallego’s office.
By Wednesday night, the tweets had been taken down, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Members of the group also posted a video on Facebook of themselves standing outside Gallego’s gated community in Phoenix.
In the video, one of the members holds a sign that says, “Gallego can decide who can come inside his property, but Americans can’t decide who comes into our country.”
The 25-minute video remained up on the group’s Facebook page as of Thursday.
Christina Carr, Gallego’s spokeswoman, confirmed that his office had reported the social-media posts to the U.S. Capitol Police’s “threats assessment division, per office protocol.”
Carr said Gallego’s office had seen the Twitter posts and the Facebook video.
Gallego has been a vocal opponent of President Donald Trump’s effort to convince Congress to approve nearly $6 billion in funding for a border wall. A dispute between Trump and Democrats over the funding resulted in a 35-day partial government shutdown, the longest in history.
The shutdown ended Jan. 25 after Trump agreed to a deal to fund the government until Feb. 15 while negotiations over border-security funding continue.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, a group that monitors extremist and hate groups, said the posts targeting Gallego appeared to be part of coordinated protests at the homes and residences of other Democratic politicians, including U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, a Texas Democrat who ran for the U.S. Senate, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Patriot Movement AZ is the group that has been protesting in recent weeks outside Phoenix-area churches that have agreed to provide temporary housing and humanitarian assistance to large groups of families being released by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement after being apprehended at the border.
Some of the pastors have contacted police after they said members of the group showed up and trespassed on church property while yelling at and videotaping families of migrants being released by ICE.
A video clip posted on Twitter by the Southern Poverty Law Center in January showed members of the group protesting at a church in Phoenix. On the clip, one protester with a red beard and a gun holstered on his hip claims to have been kicked off the property after he “busted right through the door” of the church.