Texas Gov. Abbott describes victims as "illegal," catering to GOP base
Listen 8 min Comment on this story Comment Gift Article Share
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s decision to identify five mass killing victims as “illegal immigrants” is part of a political evolution for the once-judicious Republican who has escalated his rhetoric to match the rightward moves of the Republican Party. Wp Get the full experience. Choose your plan ArrowRight Abbott’s comments — for which his office had to apologize Monday because they were inaccurate — drew a torrent of outrage, but with Texas Republicans firmly in control of the state, his opponents have had few options to hold him accountable.
Texas law enforcement continues to search for the man accused of slaughtering five members of a Honduran family inside their home in a rural area north of Houston. The slayings, according to witnesses, came after the victims’ family asked the gunman, who lives next door, to stop firing his weapon late Friday night because children were trying to sleep.
Advertisement
Abbott on Sunday tweeted — first from his campaign account and then from his official government account — about a reward for information about “the criminal who killed five illegal immigrants.”
In a statement on Monday, the governor’s office backpedaled, blaming inaccurate information from federal officials.
“We’ve since learned that at least one of the victims may have been in the United States legally,” Abbott spokeswoman Renae Eze said. “We regret if the information was incorrect and detracted from the important goal of finding and arresting the criminal.”
Abbott’s focus on the victims’ immigration status is the latest in a string of inflammatory statements from the governor, a shift for the former jurist previously known for weighing his political moves carefully to avoid blowback. But as his constituency lurches rightward, Abbott has reacted with more abandon.
Advertisement
In recent weeks, the governor promised to pardon a Texas veteran convicted of a murdering a Black Lives Matter protester. He has not backed down despite the subsequent release by the court of documents showing Daniel Perry’s racist and threatening messages and content.
In 2022, one day after the slaughter of schoolchildren and teachers in Uvalde, he told parents at a public assembly that it “could have been worse,” if not for law enforcement’s heroic actions. Reporters later learned police waited more than an hour to confront the Robb Elementary school gunman, after which Abbott said he had been misled.
When speaking about immigration, he has consistently heightened “invasion” rhetoric and challenged constitutional norms around immigration, tying migrants to lawlessness and busing them across the country to drop them in Democratic areas.
Advertisement
“He has recognized that his Republican base and the conservative electorate of Texas doesn’t hold him to his mistakes because they might not see these as mistakes,” said Cal Jillson, a political scientist at Southern Methodist University. “He’s just decided he can speak his mind and is not likely to pay a heavy price for it.”
Democrats argue Abbott is reflecting the growing extremism of the party he represents. They cited the circumstances of the most recent killing, during which women tried to save children as the gunman fired.
“Could you imagine having no compassion about two women who piled themselves on top of a body of a child trying to save them during such a gruesome attack?” said Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Tex.). “That’s Greg Abbott’s Republican Party.”
While the governor has always responded to the most conservative elements of his party, experts said, Abbott has often been pressured by conservative media or hard-liners before acting. Before announcing the planned pardon, Abbott was called out on it by former Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
Advertisement
But increasingly, Texas political experts say, Abbott appears to be going further with his rhetoric unilaterally with an eye to not ceding ground to potential Republican competitors like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. DeSantis is widely expected to seek the presidency, while Abbott has been silent about his national ambitions.
“If you ever want to know what the governor is going to do next, all you have to do is subscribe to the Orlando Sentinel or Miami Herald,” said University of Texas at San Antonio political scientist Jon Taylor, referencing two Florida newspapers and their coverage of DeSantis.
Abbott, who is in his third term as governor, has never been more powerful in Texas. He enjoys near complete approval from Republican voters — and many independents and South Texas Democrats — for his policies such as border security initiative Operation Lone Star. His political appointees are scattered throughout the state in influential sectors and in courtrooms. Because of redistricting, he and his allies have helped make it harder for a Democrat to win or hold onto seats. And he has managed to fortify his hold on voters and their state representatives regardless of the state’s growing Black, Latino and Asian American population.
That has allowed Abbott to maneuver with little apparent damage through potentially damaging circumstances, such as the deaths of scores of Texans after a winter storm triggered a prolonged power outage.
The governor’s Republican colleagues, on Monday, focused not on his comments about those killed in the weekend attack but on his statement about the status of the shooter, who has been deported multiple times.
Advertisement
“Gov. Abbott stated the facts,” said James Wesolek, a spokesman for the Texas Republican Party who declined to answer other questions. “I hope you will report them.”
When Abbott speaks, he is not directing his message to all of Texas, political scientists said. The governor, who rarely grants interviews outside of friendly conservative media, is almost always talking to his base. The mass killing that took place in San Jacinto County was not far from Montgomery County, a hotbed of conservative party activists who rejected the governor’s short-lived mask mandates in 2020 and played host to Abbott’s conservative rivals.
“The fact that the victims were undocumented is completely irrelevant other than to perhaps enhance the association between illegal immigration and lawlessness,” Jones said. “It’s the type of messaging that rallies his base, and this is what they want to see him do.”
Advertisement
Paul Chabot, a retired U.S. Navy commander who runs a company that helps conservatives move from blue states to red states, drew a contrast between San Jacinto Sheriff Greg Capers’s compassionate words and the governor’s.
While the sheriff said their immigration status was irrelevant to the crime, Chabot said he thinks that the governor had a point and that criticism of it is ultimately “much to do about nothing.”
“The sheriff is right; it’s murder on American soil,” Chabot said. “Abbott is far removed from it. He’s pointing out a larger problem. The governor is speaking Texas-wide. The sheriff is right for focusing in on the victims and the manhunt.”
Speaking to fellow Texas conservatives is also part of a broader power flex by Abbott to ensure his legislative agenda passes. Abbott has been barnstorming the state around his school-choice package that will create vouchers for private and religious schools. He faces resistance from rural state lawmakers worried about the governor undermining public school budgets.
Advertisement
“Abbott is at the point where he needs his political power to be at its pinnacle, to use all his influence, power and pressure to make sure Republicans approve the legislation he wants and vote down the ones he doesn’t, which is especially the case for school choice,” said Mark P. Jones, political scientist at Rice University’s Baker Institute.
Democrats, in the meantime, are virtually powerless to deliver political consequences. After all the statements and policy debates, the party has portrayed Abbott as tone-deaf, personally unsympathetic and cruel. But they have not made a dent in his popularity, nor have they won a statewide election in three decades.
The Texas Legislature has not passed any gun control measure despite being home to two of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history, along with a host of killings in other locations. Instead, the governor has advocated for fewer gun restrictions and called reform measures advocated for by the families of victims unconstitutional.
Advertisement
After school shootings in Santa Fe and Uvalde, victims’ parents have relentlessly lobbied state leaders to raise the firearm purchasing age, which they argue may have prevented the 18-year-old gunman at Uvalde’s Robb Elementary School from obtaining a rifle. But their impassioned pleas were met in recent days by lawmakers refusing to bring the measure up for a vote.
“The momentum is on the other side,” said Dustin Rynders, an attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project.
“Our state legislative session is characterized by increased border militarization, attacks on transgender children and the banning of books.”
Molly Hennessy-Fiske contributed to this report.
GiftOutline Gift Article
Source: The Washington Post
