(Eagle Pass) They came in vans and caravans and identify themselves as “fighters for God”: in Texas, hundreds of Americans have been massing for several days along the border with Mexico, to protest against the “invasion” of migrants.
“Join the fight of God”, can we read on the body of one of the vehicles arriving at a ranch in Quemado, a Texan town of 162 inhabitants, with rustic houses scattered in the middle of the valley where the Rio Grande flows, the natural border between the United States and Mexico.
Thousands of migrants cross this river every month, undertaking long journeys from Central and South America in search of better living conditions in the United States.
“Migration at the border is out of control. We are being invaded and we have to control what is happening,” Robyn Forzano, 43, who controls access to the Quemado ranch, told AFP.
PHOTO ERIC GAY, ASSOCIATED PRESS
A tractor-trailer reading “For God and Country” arrives in Quemado to join the convoy.
The subject of immigration is at the heart of the presidential campaign in the United States, carried vehemently by former President Donald Trump, the big favorite for the Republican nomination and who will most likely face Democrat Joe Biden in November.
It is precisely on the banks of the Rio Grande that these activists, who describe themselves as “We, the people”, taking up the first words of the preamble to the American Constitution, decided to gather.
A few days earlier, one of the organizers of the event claimed that the participants formed “the army of God”.
Under the slogan “Let’s take back our border”, they came in convoys from different regions of the country and intend to camp this weekend around the border towns.
We see many banners in support of Donald Trump. “Heaven has walls, hell has open borders,” we read on a sign, an allusion to the “wall” that the ex-president wanted to build to block the way for migrants.
“Disaster zone”
PHOTO ERIC GAY, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Dan Beazley. who is one of his “fighters for God” crosses a road carrying a cross.
“The people in Mexico, they are wonderful, magnificent people, I love them,” assures AFP Marty Bird, a 73-year-old supporter of Donald Trump, in the neighboring town of Eagle Pass.
“But it seems that once they come here […] they get angry. They steal, they commit burglaries,” he said.
The town of Eagle Pass is at the center of a battle involving legal complaints, including before the United States Supreme Court, between the Biden administration and Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott.
An outspoken supporter of Donald Trump, Mr. Abbott openly defies the authority of the Biden administration, accusing it of “deliberate inaction” in the face of a record influx of migrants at the border in recent months.
Barbed wire installed by Texas authorities near the border town of Eagle Pass is the subject of a legal battle with the federal government.
Furthermore, the takeover since January 11 by the Texas National Guard of a municipal park in Eagle Pass bordering the Rio Grande has sparked controversy between Texas and the Democratic administration.
Not everyone views the arrival of these convoys of demonstrators favorably.
Jessie Fuentes, who rents kayaks on the river, calls it a “disaster zone.”
“Some groups who claim to be an army of God come to our community to spread hatred,” he told AFP. “I’m worried because that’s not who we are.”