El Paso: 5 Years Later!

Nothing has changed since the El Paso mass shooting.

We still have mass shootings in the United States. Two major mass shootings happened on August 3 and 4 in 2019. It was a moment that affected my community and a city 1,560 miles away.

We mark five years of the tragic mass shooting in El Paso. The incident happened when a white nationalist traveled from the Dallas area to deliberately target Hispanic and Black shoppers at a Walmart near the Cielo Vista Mall.

His motive was the frustration of immigrants coming into the U.S. and politicians not doing anything to stop it. Inspired by white nationalists, conservative agitators, Republican lawmakers and former president Donald J. Trump, the shooter killed 23 before he was arrested without resistance.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation investigated the shooting as an act of domestic terrorism and a hate crime. The shooting has been described as the deadliest attack on Latinos in modern American history.

The shooter Patrick Crusius was one of the many shooters who aren't Muslim.

He posted a manifesto with white nationalist and anti-immigrant themes on the imageboard 8chan shortly before the attack. The manifesto cites the Christchurch mosque shootings earlier that year, and the far-right conspiracy theory known as the Great Replacement, as inspiration for the attack. On February 8, 2023, following an announcement that the Department of Justice would not seek the death penalty, Crusius pleaded guilty to 90 federal murder and hate crime charges. On July 7, 2023, Crusius was sentenced to 90 consecutive life sentences, but he is currently pending trial for state charges that would still potentially result in the death penalty under Texas state jurisdiction if found guilty.

The victims were identified by the El Paso Police.

• Andre Anchondo, 23
• Jordan Anchondo, 24
• Arturo Benavides, 60
• Leonardo Campos, 41
• Angie Englisbee, 86
• Maria Flores, 77
• Raul Flores, 83
• Guillermo "Memo" Garcia, 36
• Jorge Calvillo García, 61
• Adolfo Cerros Hernández, 68
• Alexander Gerhard Hoffman, 66
• David Johnson, 63
• Luis Alfonzo Juarez, 90
• Maria Eugenia Legarreta Rothe, 58
• Maribel (Campos) Loya, 56
• Ivan Filiberto Manzano, 46
• Elsa Mendoza Marquez, 57
• Gloria Irma Márquez, 61
• Margie Reckard, 63
• Sara Esther Regalado Moriel, 66
• Javier Rodriguez, 15
• Teresa Sanchez, 82
• Juan Velazquez, 77

It was a moment where Trump could have toned down the rhetoric. He chose not to.

As he is running for another term, Trump will likely avoid El Paso. Trump, being a survivor of mass shooting continues to push rhetoric that could inspire more attacks.

He plans on returning to Butler, Pennsylvania, the site of the latest mass shooting that was an assassination attempt on his life.

Doubt he will post anything on Truth Social about the El Paso mass shooting.

Matter of fact, Trump and Republicans are amping up the rhetoric against immigrants, Muslims, President Joe Biden, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and the junk food media. Trump typed "Unite America" after he survived the assassination attempt. It was all a farce. He never promised to tone down the rhetoric. The National Association of Black Journalists was a prime example of it.

Trump and Republicans have pushed spikes in border arrivals and the issue of immigration during President Joe Biden's term as a centerpiece of the 2024 election.

Trump had warned Republicans that he will support their primary challengers if they supported any Biden immigration bills. Republicans oppose a bipartisan bill being pushed by Sen. John Lankford (R-OK), Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) and Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT). They spent nearly a year working on a bipartisan bill to solve the immigration issue. Trump called the Republicans and directly told them that if they passed it, it would deflate his argument about the border being out of control.

Polls have shown increases in support for tougher border policies among voters, including Hispanics, as more communities have had to shelter and respond to people coming across the border, including those who have been shuttled to their cities. Some communities have had to deal with migrants on the streets when shelters have been overcrowded or resources have run out.

A memorial was erected for the victims of the El Paso mass shooting.

Families of those killed and 22 more who were wounded will mark the grim anniversary Saturday of the day that gunman drove 700 miles to target Mexicans — as he told police after the shooting — ended the lives of their spouses, children, family members and friends.

Before the shooting, the gunman posted a screed online saying the shooting was his response to the “Hispanic invasion of Texas” and a replacement of white people by immigrants, echoing the “great replacement” conspiracy theory promoted by white supremacists.

Paul Jamrowski, father of Jordan Anchondo who along with her husband, Andre Anchondo, lost her life shielding her then 2-month-old son, said he’ll spend the day “reminiscing, remembering them, the people they were”.

But because of a gag order in the state case against the shooter, Jarowski said he could not discuss the gunman's motivations. The shooter was sentenced last year to 90 consecutive life terms after pleading guilty to federal charges that included hate crime charges. He still faces state prosecution.  

The city's open wounds fester as the language used before the massacre by former president Donald Trump describing the border as under “invasion” and the nation being attacked has spread and is now amplified, leaders of several organizations, including Human Rights First, the Border Network for Human Rights, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs and America's Voice, said in a press call Thursday. 

In July many speakers and delegates at the Republican National Convention waved signs blaring “Mass Deportation Now” each night. Trump continues to decry a border “invasion” and he has repeated a phrase similar to one used by Adolf Hitler by declaring that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.” A call to "seal the border and stop the migrant invasion" is the first of 20 items listed in the Republican Party platform.

There will be more white extremists motivated by rhetoric of the far right.

Since the racist El Paso massacre, Trump has been joined by a chorus of others, largely Republicans, using the same language, said Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, a civil rights group.

“We see more invasion talk than we saw back then. Certainly, there is lots more anti-immigration talk from Trump himself,” Saenz said.

On Wednesday, Trump told the audience at the NABJ conference that people crossing the U.S. southern border would take “Black jobs.”

The far right and Fox are covering the migrant caravans again. It comes as no surprise they are ramping up the caravans. It almost seems like every U.S. Midterm or Presidential election, the Republican call for more attention to the border. Trump spoke the rhetoric of white nationalists. He used the "us versus them" when it comes to Black and Brown. 

He falsely claimed that immigrants are stealing jobs from Blacks.

“ ... they’re taking the employment away from Black people. They’re coming in, and they’re coming in, they’re invading,” he said. 

That is rhetoric I often hear from white supremacists, Black separatists and far right agitators in the junk food media.

NBC News reached out to the Trump campaign and of course, they pivoted or ignored request for comment.