In early 2021, Stephen Richer, an Arizona Republican official, faced harassment and death threats from his party's base over alleged election fraud. As he tried to convince them of the validity of the 2020 results, his own safety became increasingly jeopardized, prompting him to alter his political activities out of fear for his well-being. This incident highlights how far-right supporters' threats are influencing American politics, with Republican officials adjusting their behavior due to escalating risks. As a result, Richer no longer feels comfortable attending GOP events and has had to fortify his office with security measures.

[Julia Shipley](https://www.wired.com/author/julia-shipley) [Muriel Alarcón](https://www.wired.com/author/muriel-alarcon) Jan 13, 2024 8:00 AM The fashion industry has created a sprawling informal disposal network across the world—that brings with it money, conflict, and environmental destruction. _This story originally appeared on_ [Grist](https://grist.org/international/burn-after-wearing-fashion-waste-chile/) _and was copublished with [El País](https://elpais.com/america/)_. _It’s reproduced here as part of the [Climate Desk](https://www.climatedesk.org/) collaboration. A Spanish-language version [can be read here](https://elpais.com/america-futura/2024-01-04/las-montanas-de-ropa-se-esfumaron-del-desierto-de-atacama-pero-el-problema-no-desaparecio.html)._ _Reporting was supported by the [Joan Konner Program in the Journalism of Ideas](https://journalism.columbia.edu/news/2022-fellows-joan-konner-program-journalism-ideas-are-named)._ On the morning of June 12, 2022, Ángela Astudillo, then a law student in her mid-twenties, grabbed her water bottle and hopped into her red Nissan Juke. The cofounder of Dress Desert, or [Desierto Vestido](https://www.instagram.com/desiertovestido_tarapaca/), a textile recycling advocacy nonprofit, and the daughter of tree farmers, Astudillo lives in a gated apartment complex in Alto Hospicio, a dusty city at the edge of the Atacama Desert in northern Chile, with her husband, daughter, bunny, and three aquatic turtles. Exiting the compound, Astudillo pinched the wheel, pulled over next to a car on the side of the road, and greeted Bárbara Pino, a fashion professor, and three of her students, who were waiting inside. They headed toward a mountain of sand known as El Paso de la Mula. Less than a mile from her home, squinting into the distance, Astudillo saw a thread of smoke rising from its direction. With her in the lead, the two vehicles caravanned toward the dune, the site of the second-largest clothes pile in the world. As they got closer to El Paso de la Mula, the thin trail of smoke had expanded into a huge black cloud. Astudillo stopped the car and texted the academics behind her. _It looks like it’s on fire. Hopefully, it’s not there. :( :( :(_ She then dialed them directly and asked, “Do you still want to go?” A Chilean flag stands in a traffic cone among burned piles of clothing in the Atacama Desert. Photograph: Fernando Alarcón/Grist Pino, director of [Santiago’s Fashion System Observatory](https://www.instagram.com/udpmodus/) at Universidad Diego Portales, had planned this trip for months. Astudillo had volunteered to be their guide. The mound of discarded fabric in the middle of the Atacama weighed an estimated [11,000](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MIji_6Oou8zKky32tveC-pOnGRJr_76F/view) to [59,000 tons](https://theworld.org/stories/2022-11-01/fast-fashion-causing-environmental-disaster-chiles-atacama-desert), equivalent to one or two times the Brooklyn Bridge. By the time the team reached the gates of El Paso de la Mula, more than half of the clothes pile was on fire. Smoke obscured everything, hanging like an opaque black curtain. Municipal authorities turned the group away, forbidding them to stay on the premises. But Astudillo knew the landscape, so she directed the team to the dune’s far side, where access was still unimpeded. There, the students surveyed the inferno. It was “like a war,” Pino said. She felt waves of heat. Black smoke unspooled from the burning clothes. The air was dense and hard to breathe. Smoke coated the back of their throats and clogged their nostrils with the acrid smell of melting plastic. They covered their faces, trying not to breathe it in. Then the group heard a series of loud pops as mini explosions burst from within the vast expanse of burning garments. Ángela Astudillo holds a piece of discarded clothing from the Atacama Desert. Photograph: Fernando Alarcón/Grist Despite the danger, Pino and her students rummaged, pulling out specimens to examine from among unburned portions of the pile. On prior visits to the clothes dump, Astudillo had uncovered clothing produced by the world’s most well-known brands: Nautica, Adidas, Wrangler, Old Navy, H&M, Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, Forever 21, Zara, Banana Republic. Store tags still dangled from many of her findings. The clothes had [come to the Atacama](https://obtienearchivo.bcn.cl/obtienearchivo?id=repositorio/10221/33437/1/BCN__ropa_usada_mercado_regulacio__n_nacional_y__comparada_agos2022.pdf) from Europe, the United States, Korea, and Japan. Now, as Astudillo began taking pictures and uploading them to Instagram, Pino wandered the mound, horrified and fascinated by the grotesque volume and variety of apparel: ski jackets, ball gowns, bathing suits. She plucked out a rhinestone-encrusted platform stiletto in perfect condition. She crouched to search for its match, but the wind was getting stronger. If it shifted, the team realized, they’d be trapped in the spreading fire. For 14 years, no rain has fallen in Alto Hospicio or the surrounding Atacama Desert region. Those dry conditions, coupled with the nonbiodegradable, predominantly synthetic, petroleum-derived fibers that modern clothes are made with, meant that the pile never shrank. Instead, for more than two decades, it grew—metastasized—with every discarded, imported item that was added. In 2021, six months prior to the fire, a photographer from Agence France-Presse, Martín Bernetti, captured a bird’s-eye image of this sprawling mound of apparel, essentially an oil slick, strewn across the edge of the Atacama desert. The aerial image was picked up by news outlets across the globe, from the front page of the _New York Post_ to the BBC, and continues to circulate today. But the mountain of clothes depicted by that 2021 drone photo is utterly gone. As Astudillo, Pino, and the three students witnessed, and unwittingly tasted: The blaze tore through the pile, throwing black plumes of toxic ash into the air. An aerial view of used clothes discarded in the Atacama Desert, in Alto Hospicio, Iquique, Chile, on September 26, 2021. Photograph: Martin Bernetti/Getty Images The town of Alto Hospicio sits on a cliff above the Pacific Ocean, a bedroom community for the seaside vacation city of Iquique below. Imagine if Atlantic City in New Jersey were simultaneously hemmed in and backed by a high Nevada plateau, and if the two locales were connected by a two-lane switchback highway. Each day in Iquique’s port, giant cranes pluck containers full of discarded clothing from the decks of ships and deposit them onto flatbed trucks. No one really knows exactly how much clothing passes through the port every year; estimates range from [60,000](https://remake.world/stories/old-navy-hm-and-levis-tags-found-in-landfill-fire/) to [44 million tons.](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/chile-fashion-pollution) Next, they head to the nearby Free Trade Zone, known locally as “Zofri,” where trailers back into the warehouses of 52 used-clothes importers and forklift operators transfer sealed bales of clothing, or _fardos,_ inside. Chile is the [biggest importer](https://oec.world/en/profile/hs/used-clothing) of secondhand clothing in South America, and between 2020 and 2021 it was the fastest-growing importer of used clothing in the world. The port of Iquique is an established tax-free zone, incentivizing this booming industry of castaway textiles. A vendor in Iquique sells secondhand shoes. Photograph: Muriel Alacón From Zofri, bales of clothing are sold, uninspected, to merchants betting that at least some of the items inside are sales-worthy. “When you buy, you are buying with your eyes closed,” one former merchant said. Sometimes 80 percent of the garments in a bale are usable. Sometimes the opposite is true. Because bales are so cheap, however, most merchants need only sell 40 percent to turn a profit. According to the global environmental advocacy group Ekō (formerly known as SumOfUS), an estimated 85 percent of the used clothing imported into Iquique remains unsold. Chilean federal law states it’s illegal to dispose of textiles. Considered Iquique’s backyard, Alto Hospicio is one of the poorest cities in Chile, widely known as a place to abandon pets and dump trash. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the small desert town is where more than a dozen teenage girls mysteriously vanished, until their apprehended killer led authorities to bodies buried in desert graves. Manuela Medina, left, and her family pose for a photo near their clothing pile in the Atacama Desert. Photograph: Fernando Alarcón/Grist In 2001, Manuela Medina\*, a former gardener, saw an opportunity in Iquique’s growing textile abundance. Relocating to Alto Hospicio, she established an unauthorized compound on government lands at the base of El Paso de la Mula, the huge sand dune at the far side of an unregulated shantytown. Every few days, she hired a _fl_e_tero_—a driver with a jalopy—to travel the switchback roads, out of the brown dunes of Alto Hospicio, to arrive in the colorful oceanside city of Iquique, which sits a thousand miles north of the country’s capital, Santiago. Near the dock where cranes unload massive container ships, inside Iquique’s free trade zone, Medina ventured into the contiguous warehouses, asking secondhand clothing importers, “Do you have any garbage?” Back at her compound, Medina unloaded her wares in piles on the ground where she had the luxury of storing them indefinitely—the Atacama Desert is one of the driest places on Earth, meaning items don’t undergo normal degradation from elements like rain. Here, Medina sold her piles to merchants and others for $10 each. As more and more bales of _ropa americana,_ or secondhand clothes, arrived in Iquique, the clothes flooded importers’ warehouses and overflowed vendors’ stalls in open air markets, including La Quebradilla—one of the largest open air markets in South America, located just a few miles from Medina’s unauthorized compound. Video: Fernando Alarcón/Grist Soon, importers and secondhand merchants began to deliver surplus used clothes directly to Medina. Fed by daily truck deliveries, and then by multiple daily tractor trailer load deliveries, Medina’s pile grew. By 2020, Medina’s gargantuan desert dump had become an open secret in Chile, stretching across dozens of acres. Others followed her model, creating mini-dumps across the desert and along roadsides, but Medina’s pile remained the largest. On March 29, 2022, Paulin Silva, an environmental lawyer, stood before the Primer Tribunal Ambiental de Antofagasta, a regional tribunal in northern Chile that specializes in resolving environmental issues within its jurisdiction. She was presenting a lawsuit, brought on behalf of herself as a resident of Iquique, against the municipality and the federal Chilean government for their inaction over the sprawling, unregulated clothes dumps. For her submission of evidence, she asked the tribunal to join her in touring the mound of clothing. Paulin Silva poses for a photo in an office. She has pushed the government to take action on the illegal clothing dumps near Iquique, Chile. Photograph: Fernando Alarcón/Grist For weeks, her informal team of supporters (a geographer, her sister, and her brother-in-law) had been documenting the problem, joking among themselves, “In which dump are we going to party tonight?” Since obtaining her law degree, Silva has prosecuted a handful of environmental cases, but this one was personal, and she felt empowered to tackle it: “I have the education, I am a lawyer, I can do something,” she said. She’d grown up in northern Chile, a pencil-thin country bordered by the Pacific Ocean. Her father is from Alto Hospicio and her mother is from Iquique. At 35, she’s several years older than Astudillo, the cofounder of the nonprofit Dress Desert, whom Silva asked to be a witness for the case. When Silva was a child, she observed people dumping clothes everywhere—the streets, yards, and city squares. Because this was the only place she knew for so much of her life, she thought, “It’s normal for people to live with … garbage accumulated around them.” This local “clothes-blindness” was documented by Astudillo’s colleague, Bastián Barria, an engineering student and cofounder of Dress Desert. In November 2020, he and others conducted a survey to ascertain local attitudes regarding the clothing waste. Of the almost 400 people in Alto Hospicio he surveyed, representing less than 1 percent of the town’s population, more than half did not think there was any issue. When Silva was 18, she moved a thousand miles south, to Valparaiso in central Chile, to study law, and that was where she remained until the pandemic, when she returned home. That’s when she realized the dump situation had worsened. Exponentially. Shoes pile up in an illegal clothing dump in the Atacama Desert. CREDIT: Fernando Alarcón/Grist During the decades between Silva’s girlhood and today, clothing production worldwide doubled, while utilization—the number of times an item of clothing is worn before it is thrown away—declined by 36 percent. Countries like Chile, Haiti, and Uganda became depositories for fast fashion discards. In 2021 alone, Chile imported [more than 700,000 tons](https://obtienearchivo.bcn.cl/obtienearchivo?id=repositorio/10221/33437/1/BCN__ropa_usada_mercado_regulacio__n_nacional_y__comparada_agos2022.pdf) of new and used clothing—the weight equivalent of 70 Eiffel Towers. “Even if we stopped clothing production throughout the world tonight,” said Francisca Gajardo, an Iquique-born fashion designer, “we still have more garments than we need or that the Earth can safely hold. It won’t go away nicely, and we’re not stopping today.” Nine days after the giant fires, around 4 pm, Silva was having a light meal, the Chilean equivalent of afternoon tea known as _once_ (pronounced “on-say”), with her family in northern Chile. A few days prior, the Primer Tribunal Ambiental de Antofagasta had informed her it was ready to view her case evidence by touring the clothes pile in person. Silva took out her phone to share the good news on Instagram with Desierto Vestido, but before she could, she saw the images of the burning clothes Desierto Vestido had just uploaded and shared. Silva sprang from her chair to process what was happening to the evidence in her case just a few miles away. She suspected why the court had been willing to view the landfill: “Because obviously the matter was burned,” she told Grist. While no official cause of the fires has ever been reported, local residents claim it began late on Saturday night or in the early hours of Sunday. Days later, toxic air still clung to the area. Astudillo, who visited the site regularly, described the pile as “volcanic”—with clothes smoldering under the sand, venting smoke full of textile chemicals from synthetic materials. She warned, “You can’t be outside for long.” In the days following the fire, on June 22, instead of leading the tour of the prosecutorial evidence, Silva filed a statement to the Primer Tribunal Ambiental de Antofagasta: “With sadness and shame I inform you that 11,000 tons of clothes in the textile dump were burned.” Graffiti in one of the most dangerous shantytowns in Chile, near Manuela Medina’s home. The word “votar” is likely supposed to be “botar,” which in Spanish means “throw.” But in its current form, it reads, “Do not vote trash. It will be reported.” Photograph: Fernando Alarcón/Grist Although Paulin provided the court with Dress Desert’s smartphone video recordings of the clothes in flames, the defense argued that the Instagram account where they’d posted the videos could not be verified and confirmed. Lacking a certifiable timestamp, the films were inadmissible. One year later, in August 2023, the Primer Tribunal Ambiental de Antofagasta called a trial hearing so that all parties involved in the case—the Consejo de Defensa del Estado, the body that judicially represents the state in Chile, the municipality of Alto Hospicio, and Silva—could present evidence. During the hearing, the Mayor at Alto Hospicio, Patricio Ferreira, said that one of his priorities is to “transform this problem into an opportunity to generate employment.” He alluded to discussions he had with European businessmen to explore initiatives related to recycling. Silva got people to testify in her favor, activists and academics who have given statements to different media outlets about the environmental problem generated by the textile landfill in the Chilean desert. But on the day of the hearing, none of them arrived. “At the end of the day, in practice, I am alone in this action,” she said. Chile’s government recently voted to adopt recycling measures that make certain producers accountable for their waste. Known as the extended producer responsibility law, or REP using its Spanish acronym, the legislation passed in 2016 and took effect in January 2023. Currently, Chilean companies that make tires and packaging (such as bags, plastics, paper, cardboard, cans, and glass) must comply. Eventually, according to the Ministry of the Environment, Chile intends to incorporate clothing and textiles as a priority product into the REP law. However, in the case of clothes, many describe the REP as a “paper solution” that lacks tangible enforcement, said Pino, from the Universidad Diego Portales. In parallel, the Ministry of the Environment is developing a circular economy strategy for textile waste. Unlike the REP, the agency crafts public policy for the public and private sectors to prevent overproduction. The ministry has been holding workshops and conversations to collect input from stakeholders, including academics, business executives, retailers, and nonprofit leaders. It is also tabulating the results of a preliminary survey on consumer clothes-buying habits. The details of this circular economy strategy is expected to be published in March this year. At the minister’s invitation, Pino has shared her fashion expertise—both in the markets and in the desert—with the group. “These two things are wonderful initiatives,” she said about both efforts, but she lamented that they fail to address the issue of used clothes. Bárbara Pino, director of the Fashion System Observatory, stands on the campus of the Universidad Diego Portales in Santiago, Chile. Photograph: Fernando Alarcón/Grist A decade ago, when the REP was first being discussed, Denisse Morán, president of the Tarapacá Recyclers and the head of ServiREC, a recycling cooperative that operates within Iquique’s free trade zone, sought out her local representative to request that the law apply to both clothing producers and clothing importers. “Oh, because you are from Iquique?” she recalled him asking her. “Not only because I am from Iquique,” she replied, “but because we all wear clothes.” For years, many residents in Alto Hospicio saw the piles of textiles as more of an opportunity than an eyesore or environmental threat, something that supported the local economy. When Jazmín Yañez arrived in town from southern Chile in 2018 almost penniless and on the brink of homelessness, for example, someone gave her a few cast-off garments and household garbage—from towels and kitchen implements to furniture—to sell. Ever since, Yañez, now 28, has waged a zealous campaign to salvage, fix, and reutilize all “waste” materials. She operates an informal store from the kitchen of her house called Stop Recicla: “Your trash is my treasure,” where she sells, exchanges, and gifts items such as rugs, used clothing, school supplies, costumes, and electronics to impoverished mothers, like she once was. Jazmín Yañez poses next to a pile of secondhand clothing that she will sell in her home-based store, Stop Recicla. Photograph: Fernando Alarcón/Grist It’s this trash/treasure duality that kept Astudillo and other locals from viewing the region’s booming used clothing trade as a problem. But six months before the fires, in January 2022, Nathalia Tavolieri, a Brazilian journalist, invited Astudillo to El Paso de la Mula, where she encountered Manuela Medina’s mountain for the first time. Astudillo had seen numerous clothing dumps strewn and mounded throughout the desert, but nothing as big as this immense tangle of blouses and pants. “It was terrible,” she said, weeping as she recalled her first visit. “Maybe if I had been older, maybe I could have done more things \[to stop this from happening\].” The experience galvanized her. She had already cofounded Desierto Vestido two years before to raise awareness and creatively respond to the country’s burgeoning waste clothing issue. As part of the project’s efforts, she and 20 other members host workshops and conversations. They upcycle castaway materials into new garments and craft household items. Seeing the vastness of Medina’s clothing pile, Astudillo stepped up her resolve, because “many people don’t see—or don’t want to see.” “It was very, very hard,” she said, “to know that we live in a place that is so polluted and damaged by everyone’s waste.” Several months later, Astudillo brought Gajardo, the clothes designer and a fellow Iquiquean, to the dump, and gained an ally in her efforts. Despite growing up and shopping at the region’s numerous outdoor secondhand clothes markets, Gajardo was appalled by the scope of the waste. She developed rashes from rummaging among the fabrics. A garment emerges in stages from the desert sand in the Atacama Desert. Photograph: Fernando Alarcón/Grist Photograph: Fernando Alarcón/Grist Photograph: Fernando Alarcón/Grist “The fact that we have a desert, the fact that there’s a place to receive this, doesn’t mean that the place has to become the dump of the world,” she said. Since then, Gajardo’s conviction to never design clothes from virgin materials has deepened. Additionally, through her brand [You Are the New Generation](https://www.instagram.com/y.a.n.g._/?hl=en), she offers workshops in reusing garments, and visited Kansas City, Missouri, last year through the US State Department’s Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative to teach people to make new clothes by harvesting old ones. Other entrepreneurs have attempted to turn the clothes problem into revenue, but have faced a series of setbacks. Franklin Zepeda is a celebrated Chilean entrepreneur who toured Europe’s textile recycling plants before returning to the region in 2013 to establish Ecofibre, now known as Procitex. (Its name is an acronym for _proceso circular en textil_ in Spanish). With seed funding from CORFO, the Chilean economic development agency, and later from private capital, Zepeda was able to route textiles imported into Iquique to his plant, where they were disassembled, shredded, doused with flame retardant, and transformed into insulation panels. Zepeda got praise for this work in several [major international news outlets](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/chile-fashion-pollution), but he shuttered his plant in Alto Hospicio in 2021 because of unfavorable economics, including the taxes on shipping the insulation panels to other regions of the country. Dario Blanco, manager of the ZOFRI User Association AG (AUZ), a trade association that brings together businessmen from the Iquique free zone, believes that the solution to the region’s problem of discarded clothing is out there—it will just take the right company and policies. And there are plenty of entrepreneurs, fashion designers, and environmentalists working on the issue of textile waste, both in Chile and internationally. Men work at a factory that recycles used textiles discarded in the Atacama Desert for wooden isolation panels for the walls of social housing, in Alto Hospicio, Iquique, Chile, in 2021. Photograph: Martin Bernetti/Getty Images As [Bloomberg reported in May,](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-05-25/clothing-waste-is-a-problem-fashion-brands-could-force-you-to-pay-for-it#xj4y7vzkg) New York, California, Sweden, and the Netherlands are developing legislation similar to Chile’s extended producer responsibility law that went into effect this year, mandating that the fashion industry fund recycling programs via tariffs calibrated to the quantity of garments produced. In order to help New York City uphold its existing law limiting or forbidding textiles in the waste stream, [FabScrap](https://fabscrap.org/), a nonprofit founded in 2016 by a former New York Department of Sanitation worker, receives 7,000 pounds of preconsumer textile waste each week. Sorted by volunteers, the nonsynthetic scrap items are sent to a New Jersey facility that shreds the material, producing “shoddy,” a stuffing used to fill punching bags, sofas, and soft toys. A Czech company called [RETEX](https://www.instagram.com/retexchile/?hl=en) has been attempting to bring its fabric-macerating technology to Alto Hospicio. Blanco says that in exchange for securing a contract with Chile, the company promised to hire local workers. But, Blanco admitted, negotiations like these have fallen through in the past. For example, he said, a Spain-based company, [Egreen](http://www.engreeng.com/), planned to open a fabric-waste processing plant, but the deal was scrapped late last year. The governor’s sustainability adviser at the Regional Government of Tarapaca, Pablo Zambra, recently formed a 25-member committee that includes stakeholders such as Astudillo and Barria from Dress Desert and Morán, the president of the Tarapacá Recyclers, to publicize economic incentives for circular economy initiatives. Collectively, they hope RETEX will succeed in doing what Zepeda’s company failed to do: turn a profit. As of this writing, no importers are involved. Meanwhile, every day, container ships continue to offload more cargo. In the fall of 2022, Alto Hospicio’s mayor, Ferreira, [acknowledged the unsolved problem](https://www.batimes.com.ar/news/latin-america/chiles-unique-atacama-desert-sullied-by-worlds-junk.phtml) but blamed clothing manufacturers, citing a “lack of global awareness of ethical responsibility.” “Our land has been sacrificed,” he said. Pino agrees that the fashion industry and its consumers are culpable. “We have to worry about the complete cycle: before, during, and after our clothes,” she wrote in an [editorial](https://www.elmostrador.cl/noticias/opinion/cartas/2021/11/23/vertederos-de-ropa-y-la-urgencia-de-tomar-accion/) published in 2021. She believes a more comprehensive solution is necessary, including regulating the entry of textile materials to Chile, educating consumers about prolonging garments’ lives, promoting Chile’s homegrown fashion industry, and supporting research to design new uses for fabric waste. Ecocitex, founded in 2020 by engineer Rosario Hevia in Santiago, has sprung up as another Chilean company addressing a surfeit of garments. Ecocitex operates in a manner contrary to the country’s organized and informal secondhand clothes markets. It invites people to recycle high-quality clothing or pay $1.50 per kilogram to leave poor-quality clothing and walk away empty-handed. Bastián Barria, cofounder of the organization Dress Desert with Ángela Astudillo, recently joined a government-sponsored committee to help push forward circular economy initiatives in Chile. Photograph: Fernando Alarcón/Grist During the pandemic, Andrea Espinoza Pérez, a civil industrial engineer at the University of Santiago, initiated a [study](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35337866/) on the ecological impacts of projects like Ecocitex. She wanted to know: Did factory-processed, used clothing produce fewer emissions than the original clothing manufacturing process? With data provided by Ecocitex’s founder Hevia, scientists determined that the clothes deconstruction process is effective because it keeps waste clothes out of landfills, and it replaces the demand for virgin materials. While Ecocitex’s procedure is also energy-intensive, the study found, it uses just 73 percent of the energy required to produce the same product from raw materials. Meanwhile, neither Zepeda’s Procitex, nor Hevia’s Ecocitex in Chile, nor Fabscrap’s efforts in New York and Philadelphia have matched the direct profitability of Medina’s now-defunct business. (Medina has started a new business storing tires.) In fact, all have relied heavily on a variety of underwriting measures, including subsidies, nonprofit funding, subscriptions, or volunteer labor to generate their products. In recent years, Zepeda has earned his living as an employee of Chile’s largest retailer, CENCOSUD. He collects surplus clothes donated by customers, and produces insulation panels for buildings that are sold by the same retailer. As for Ecocitex, in June, the business caught fire and the building was destroyed. The cause is still under investigation. Undeterred, Hevia has launched a [campaign](https://www.instagram.com/p/Ct2-PiPNBgX/?hl=en) to rebuild. Meanwhile, she is raising funds by selling blankets made from recycled fibers to a mining company. By last January, the height of the Chilean summer, the gigantic, unsightly clothes dump at El Paso de la Mula, the one Agence France-Presse had shown the world, was nowhere to be found. All that remained was a smattering of ashes and the tread marks of bulldozers. Here and there, across Medina’s unofficial backyard, small piles of garments peeked out of the sand dunes. But according to municipal officials, dumping and burning continues. Rey, an indigent man who lives by the side of a desert road in a blue and yellow tent emblazoned with “National Geographic,” attests that he and others accept money from nonprofit refuse-disposal contractors or freelance truckers in exchange for setting fires to whatever waste is discharged from a truck. This way, the trucker can keep more of his hauling profits, which would otherwise be whittled down by the official dump fees. In the surroundings of Alto Hospicio, in the Atacama Desert, new landfills emerge every day. What arrives is burned by individuals living there. Some of them receive payment for doing it. Photograph: Fernando Alarcón/Grist Astudillo says that beyond the limits of Manuela’s dune, there are as many as 200 micro-garbage dumps, and consequently, miles and miles of ashes in the desert—not just scattered over the ground, but also in the air. She told Grist in late December that this is an everyday thing. “You go out to buy bread and you smell the burning smell. You smell the materials that make up the clothes: oil and plastic. After 5 in the afternoon, I no longer let my 7-year-old daughter leave the apartment, and I close the windows to prevent smoke from coming in.” She also confirmed the abandoning of clothes continues: “They throw it away, they burn it immediately.” On December 12, the Primer Tribunal Ambiental de Antofagasta issued its final ruling in the case with Silva, commissioning a unit of experts to carry out an on-site report on the accumulation of textile waste in different areas of Alto Hospicio, and to propose a solution to the accumulation of waste. The municipality of Alto Hospicio, which claims it does not have the workforce to adequately address the problem, has also installed nearly 100 cameras along the main roads as a means of tracking polluters, and has begun doling out fines as high as $350 for illegal dumping. So far, trucks have been apprehended transporting domestic and industrial garbage, as well as bulky items such as mattresses, washing machines, and furniture. Drone footage recorded by Cheng Hwa, one of Pino’s students, the day of the June 2022 fires captures the municipality fighting what was in essence an oil fire. Hwa, who grew up in Iquique and now works in tech for the hospitality industry, had long been aware of the desert dumps but didn’t comprehend the magnitude until he witnessed them at close range. Fire blazes through Manuela Medina’s clothes dump in the Atacama Desert on June 12, 2022. Photograph: Cheng Hwa/Grist He’s haunted by what his drone footage made visible. “How the desert of sand starts to turn into a desert of clothes,” he said. “It has no limit; there is no closure … Clothes begin to appear on the ground until the horizon is completely covered.” In Iquique, he often glances up toward the high plateau of Alto Hospicio. “You can’t see the dump, but \[you can see\] the column of smoke on days that \[clothes\] burn. That cloud of smoke lets you know … It makes \[the issue\] visible on a day-to-day basis.” Thirty miles south of Iquique, toward the city’s main airport, on her family’s farm, Astudillo and her parents drop pieces of used clothing on the ground, but in a purposeful way. Over the past 20 years, Astudillo’s father has experimented with growing trees in the infertile, saline soils. Many of his efforts failed until he began using certain fabrics to mulch his trees. This improves the quality of the soil, enabling it to retain moisture. For the past year, Astudillo has been working with one of the Zofri importers, who asked to remain anonymous. She consults with his staff about the clothing bales and recommends ways of sorting the material into specific categories based on fiber content, some of which she collects personally. Those items—a pair of cotton shorts, a T-shirt, a blouse—become mulch for a pine and eucalyptus forest rising in the desert. Recently, as Astudillo was leaving the farm, she stashed a few perennials in her truck and drove them to Manuela’s compound in Paso de la Mula. Just beyond Medina’s courtyard, where sky- blackening fires had once burned, Astudillo troweled a small hole for the plants. As she dug, she dislodged several odd socks and a faded blue sweatshirt—discarded clothes that had survived the fires, but were buried by bulldozers. Astudillo filled the hole, amending the desert sand with compost and garden soil. “For me it’s like a Band-Aid for a wound that is so big in that place,” she said. Then she tucked in cardinal flowers—a native plant whose petals resemble shooting flames. _Editor’s note: During visits to her compound in Alto Hospicio, Manuela, the owner of the secondhand clothing dump, told Grist reporters her name was Manuela Medina. However, other outlets have used the surname Olivos. Her legal name is Manuela de Los Angeles Medina Olivos._

The October evening was warm and sunny. At about 7pm, two young men stepped out of the Tepláreň bar on Zámocká Street in the centre of Bratislava, to sit on a concrete bench and drink lemonade. Matúš, 23, had just arrived in the Slovakian capital to study Chinese. His 26-year-old friend worked in a local clothes shop and enjoyed anime, K-pop and dance. Standing in an alcove a few metres away was Juraj Krajčík. The 19-year-old had been loitering for about half an hour, witnesses later said. Shortly after the two patrons of the Tepláreň sat down, Krajčík stepped forward, raised a .45-calibre handgun and fired several shots at them. Then he turned and ran, gun in hand. [Map](https://interactive.guim.co.uk/uploader/embed/2024/01/archive-zip/giv-134250oHHXS9N8HUx/) Within half an hour of the fatal shootings, Krajčík was on his phone. At 7.35pm, he sent a tweet: “#bratislava #hatecrime #gaybar #bratislava”. Then, 25 minutes later, another: “#bratislava feeling no regrets, isn’t that funny?” Through the night, Krajčík moved across the city, always one step ahead of police and continually active on social media. On Twitter and message boards routinely used by rightwing extremists, he expressed disappointment that he had not carried out his plans to attack a synagogue and the residence of Slovakia’s prime minister. Then he posted an image of himself with the words “have a last selfie”. The teenager ended up on a grassy hill in a park not far from his family home where, probably in the early morning, he shot himself. His body was found some hours later. In Slovakia, the attack on the Tepláreň, a prominent if rare LGBTQ+ hangout, prompted shock and statements of concern. The president, Zuzana Čaputová, called on politicians to stop spreading hate. “I’m sorry that \[we were\] not able to protect your loved ones,” she told a crowd of thousands [at a vigil](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-63267451). “You belong here; you are valuable for our society.” The Tepláreň was “a place of acceptance, of love, of happiness”, said Michaela Dénešová, the deputy head of the Inakosť initiative, which campaigns for LGBTQ+ rights in Slovakia. “They were young people. They did nothing wrong. They were just enjoying the evening with friends in a bar. That’s all. Because of their gender identity, because of their sexual orientation … Should we kill people because of that? Not at all.”  Candles and flowers at a makeshift memorial in Bratislava, Slovakia, two days after the attack on the Tepláreň bar last October. Photograph: Vladimír Šimíček/AFP/Getty Images Elsewhere, the attack attracted little attention, perhaps because the death toll was comparatively low for such shootings, or because it appeared to be motivated by local factors with limited wider significance, or perhaps because it seemed to be the act of single deranged individual. In fact, there was no evidence that Krajčík had a psychological illness or was a lone actor. Instead, it has become clear that he was a link in a chain of mutually inspired young men living thousands of miles apart, all fervent believers in a violent ideology that first gathered momentum in the US and is now spreading in [Europe](https://www.theguardian.com/world/europe-news). Evidence seen by the Guardian suggests Krajčík may have been helped – possibly even piloted – by an older extremist based in the US who has yet to be identified and could even now be working with a new potential attacker. Fifteen months after the Bratislava murders, levels of rightwing extremist violence directed at minorities in Europe continue to concern authorities everywhere. In November, police launched an international operation against rightwing terrorism in Belgium, Croatia, Germany, Lithuania, Romania and Italy. Five were arrested, suspected of recruitment, online propaganda and sharing manuals of 3D-printed weapons. In the EU, there were 45 arrests and four attacks in 2022, according to a recent Europol report. Three more were foiled, two in France and one in Germany. “The threat from rightwing terrorist lone actors, radicalised online, remain\[s\] significant,” [the report noted](https://www.europol.europa.eu/publications-events/main-reports/tesat-report). Krajčík grew up in Bratislava’s affluent Kramáre district, a quiet young man who did not smoke or drink and spent weekends with his family. He attended an elite private school in the city, where he had few friends. Though known for angry outbursts, he gave no hint of any extremist views. Some local media blamed any extremism on his father, a self-employed businessman who was a minor figure in the now defunct rightwing Vlasť (Homeland) party. It promoted a populist, nationalist, nativist vision and accused corrupt “mainstream” elites of having an agenda to weaken Slovakia by allowing its control by organisations such as Nato or the EU. Before parliamentary elections in 2020, Vlasť [deployed anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric](https://www.sv.uio.no/c-rex/english/news-and-events/right-now/2022/bratislava-shooting-and-its-aftermath.html), describing sexual minorities as “sick”, “decadent” or “perverted”. But there is no suggestion that Krajčík’s family knew of his increasing radicalism or of his plans for an attack. Vlasť’s leaders were officially opposed to violence. The catalyst for Krajčík’s attack appears to have come from farther afield. When in April 2021 he signed up to Twitter, he almost immediately began to express extreme racist ideas that had little relevance to his life in Bratislava. “American culture is centered around n \[sic\] … They killed hundreds of thousands of white men to free n. They listen to n music. They elect a n as president. They dress and act like n. They draw the entirety of their modern culture from n,” Krajčík claimed early on. More locally focused invective targeting Jewish, LGBTQ+ and Roma communities followed, but a persistent transatlantic influence remained evident. It seems, however, that Krajčík had not yet formulated ideas of launching a violent attack himself. This would come later, when, once again, he was apparently inspired by events and ideas far away. > For a lot of shooters, attacking an LGBTQ+ bar is also a means of attacking Jewish people Hannah Rose, Institute for Strategic Dialogue While Krajčík was tweeting, a teenager in Glossop, a market town in England’s picturesque Peak District, was uploading a series of videos and blogposts to an easily accessible online platform. Daniel Harris was a [troubled loner](https://www.counterterrorism.police.uk/jailed-derbyshire-teen-encouraged-terrorism-and-tried-to-make-a-gun/) who spent up to 14 hours a day online and whose extreme views had already led to a referral to the UK government’s Prevent programme, which aims to counter radicalisation and is now dealing with rising numbers of young men attracted by rightwing extremism. Between February 2021 and March 2022, Harris uploaded five videos [praising rightwing extremist mass murderers](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jan/27/uk-teenager-daniel-harris-sentenced-far-right-videos-us-killers) and calling for an armed uprising. One video focused on Brenton Tarrant, who killed 51 people [at two mosques](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/13/they-are-us-christchurch-shooting-victims-remembered-two-years-on) in Christchurch, New Zealand, in March 2019. A viewer commented: “This video has moved me. I was on the fence – now I am committed to my race.” An 18-year-old in Conklin, New York, posted encouragement: “You are not alone my friend.” Experts say such contacts are an integral part of the rightwing milieu. Alejandra Ruvinsky, senior analyst at CST, a charity that protects British Jews from antisemitism and related threats, said: “This is absolutely global, because it is encouraged and inspired by a network that is all online. When we are tracking these people, it is very difficult to find out where they are from. They could be anywhere in the world. So this means that an attack in Bratislava doesn’t mean there is a critical mass of neo-Nazis in Slovakia. It means there is a critical mass of neo-Nazis around the world.” These online communities have allowed the rapid spread of the “[great replacement](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/17/great-replacement-theory-explainer)” conspiracy theory, a set of paranoid lies and delusions claiming that white people are being economically, politically and culturally overwhelmed by the demographic rise of other communities. Many also falsely believe that feminism is a tool to undermine birth rates of the “white race” and see progressive efforts to fight homophobic prejudice or restrictive laws on homosexuality as part of a similar plan. Such falsehoods inspired the Christchurch attack as well as many of the most horrifying recent acts of white supremacist violence in the US. Far-right protesters at the 2017 [Unite the Right rally](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/28/neo-confederate-group-members-politicians-military-officers) in Charlottesville, Virginia, which led to the killing of a woman, chanted: “You will not replace us.” The online rants of mass murderers who have attacked synagogues, an LGBTQ+ club and other targets in the US have repeated the same slogans in various forms. One who killed 23 people at a [Walmart in El Paso](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/04/el-paso-shooting-white-nationalist-supremacy-violence-christchurch), Texas, in 2019 claimed his murderous rampage was “a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas”. [skip past newsletter promotion](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/21/slovakian-gay-bar-attack-great-replacement-conspiracy-theoryfast-spreading-racist-ideology#EmailSignup-skip-link-28) Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters **Privacy Notice:** Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our [Privacy Policy](https://www.theguardian.com/help/privacy-policy). We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google [Privacy Policy](https://policies.google.com/privacy) and [Terms of Service](https://policies.google.com/terms) apply. after newsletter promotion  A car being driven into a group of protesters demonstrating against a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017. Photograph: Ryan M Kelly/AP In the US and Europe, far-right politicians have made statements clearly showing the influence of this twisted thinking. The most extreme adherents aim to use violence to speed what they believe is the inevitable collapse of supposedly “corrupt and decadent” democratic societies. Attacks that exacerbate social tensions will eventually lead to a “racial” war that will bring white supremacists a final victory, they believe. This strategy, known as [accelerationism](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/11/accelerationism-how-a-fringe-philosophy-predicted-the-future-we-live-in), thrives on anonymous and almost entirely unmoderated social media such as Telegram’s Terrorgram channels and the 8chan message board where users exchange texts and videos explaining their strategy, indulge in hate-filled extremist commentary and mock those unwilling to take action themselves. This has catastrophic impacts, experts say. “The notion of a distinction between online and the ‘real world’ has long gone,” said Meghan Conroy, a research fellow with the US-based Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab. The most recent Europol report on terrorism said: “Right-wing extremist ideologies and groups from the USA continue to represent an important influence on European right-wing extremists, especially through online communities.” In May 2022, two months after commenting on Harris’s video that he was “not alone”, Payton Gendron drove for three hours and then shot dead 10 Black people in a [racially motivated attack](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/15/buffalo-shooting-gunman-sentenced-life-prison) in a supermarket in Buffalo, New York. His own manifesto used an image posted by Harris, who was arrested by British police within 48 hours of the killing. Gendron’s attack provoked feverish excitement among rightwing extremists. In Bratislava, Krajčík felt it was “the final nail in the coffin” that “gave new inspiration, a new impulse to do what had to be done after years of procrastination”.  People paying tribute to those killed in a racially motivated shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, in May 2022. Photograph: Matt Rourke/AP On 26 September 2022, Krajčík posted a thread on Twitter outlining the challenges facing anyone who was prepared to commit extreme violence to “fight for the white race”. Other tweets called for the extermination of Jews or complained about the number of immigrants in Slovakia. One called for a war in the cities against decadence and “racial enemies”. On 10 October, he tweeted images of “heroes and role models” including Hitler, Tarrant and Gendron. At 9am on 11 October, he tweeted that he had “made \[his\] decision”, and a day later he posted: “It will be done.” The next evening, Krajčík took a handgun legally owned by his father from a safe in his home and headed to the Tepláreň bar. Not long before his attack, Krajčík tweeted a link to anonymous filesharing sites where he had posted a 65-page document. This “manifesto” was similar to that uploaded by Gendron and other rightwing attackers. It outlined its author’s view of the world, the toxic influence of the “great replacement” conspiracy theory and the identity of his principal enemy. This was not the LGBTQ+ community. The manifesto’s opening line read: “It’s the jews it’s the jews its the jews.” Extreme-right conspiracy theories often accuse Jewish people of promoting LGBTQ+ rights in order to destroy the perceived nuclear family unit and lower white birth rates, analysts said. “It’s not just Jewish communities which are victims of antisemitism. For a lot of \[shooters\], attacking an LGBTQ+ bar is also a means of attacking Jewish people. So the threat to one community becomes a danger to many others,” said Hannah Rose of the UK-based Institute for Strategic Dialogue. Krajčík’s manifesto falsely claimed the world was run by “Zionist Occupied Government” and provided a lengthy list of “ZOG” targets that ranged from politicians, journalists and judges to Hollywood, pornography studios, “the Rothschilds” and “invasive non-Whites”. It also blamed Jews for supposedly plotting against “our people, our Race” by encouraging mass immigration of “enemy races”, supporting the civil rights movement in the US and manufacturing Covid vaccines. Joe Mulhall, the director of research at the antifascism organisation Hope Not Hate, said such poisonous ideas inevitably led to wider violence. “One of the things that is so dangerous about conspirational antisemitism is that it can be used to justify almost any action,” he said. “Whatever the target, the core of the ideology seems to be antisemitism.” Krajčík also left a suicide note addressed to his parents, sister and an unnamed woman or girl referred to as “Her” whom he “never had the courage to tell” of his sentiments. Seen by the Guardian_,_ the note is conventional. He thanks his parents for everything they have done for him and tells them he will be waiting for them “on the other side, wherever that could or could not be”. The note reiterates his choice of the “path of struggle against the jewish enemies and their collaborators” and adds a more personal note describing his sorrow that he “won’t be alive long enough to see the world after the enemy has been defeated”. Julia Kupper, a US-based forensic linguist specialising in targeted violence and terrorism attackers, who [analysed the tweets](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/6193e52959704a0c3b5b4b0c/t/6421ecf5721fc579c2799737/1679944949837/ARC_Terrorgrams+First+Saint_Bratislava.pdf), suicide note and manifesto, said: “There are explicit references \[in the manifesto\] that demonstrate an almost unprecedented understanding of the accelerationist scene and concepts compared to previous manifestos authored by similar attackers, and it appears unlikely that \[Krajčík\] would have gained that level of familiarity in such a short time.” Kupper ran a check against an extensive archive of manifestos to rule out systematic cutting and pasting as she sought to resolve the mismatch between the “author profile” of a 19-year-old Slovak who had never lived abroad and the language used in what he had supposedly written. Kupper focused on stylistic inconsistencies such as varying date formats or spellings, and the repeated use of idioms or vocabulary that seemed to suggest an author who was possibly in his 40s or 50s and based in the US. “We suspect there was a second author who took on a ‘command and control’ role from around May 2022, but we don’t know who this was or where at this point in time,” Kupper said. Slovakian officials who have studied local extremism on- and offline confirmed the stylistic mismatch and said the idea of a second author was “very plausible”. Experts at the Accelerationism Research Consortium, which brings together leading experts studying the activities, behaviours and ideologies, describe “a distinct global and transnational security threat to democratic societies that defies conventional counter-terrorism mechanisms and programs”. Until now, the sordid and angry world where such ideas thrive has been largely chaotic and unstructured, on- and offline. If a more experienced activist did influence Krajčík directly, a new form of militant rightwing activism may be emerging. “This would be an evolution of the Terrorgram community away from just incitement towards something much more organised in terms of instigating and preparing violence,” Kupper said. “And this is frightening.”

Jan 26, 2024 11:27 AM The Take Back Our Border channel on Telegram now has over 1,000 members, some of whom are invoking a new Civil War. .jpg) A US Border Patrol agent leads migrants who crossed into the US from Mexico to a van for transportation in El Paso, Texas, on December 21, 2022.Photograph: ALLISON DINNER/Getty Images A retired US Army lieutenant colonel is organizing an armed convoy next week to the Texas border to, he says, hunt down migrants crossing into the US from Mexico. Hundreds of people already say they are coordinating travel plans for the convoy on [Telegram](https://www.wired.com/tag/telegram/) as tensions continue to rise between the state and federal government over immigration. Pete Chambers, the lieutenant colonel who says he was a Green Beret, appeared on far-right school-shooting conspiracist Alex Jones’ InfoWars show on Thursday to outline plans for the Take Back Our Border convoy, which has been primarily organized on Telegram. “What gets us to the enemy quickly is find, fix, and finish,” Chambers told Jones. “That’s what we did in Syria when we took out ISIS really quick. Now we don’t have the authorities to finish, so what we can do is fix the location of where the bad guys are and pair up with law enforcement who are constitutionally sound.” While this kind of right-wing chatter doesn’t always amount to anything, on Telegram the main Take Back Our Border channel now has over 1,000 members and is being used as a place to plan and share information about the convoy, as well as three rallies taking place in Texas, California, and Arizona next week. The convoy will reportedly begin on Monday, January 29, and participants currently say they are planning on driving to Shelby Park in Eagle Pass, Texas, where the Texas National Guard is [currently in a standoff](https://www.texastribune.org/2024/01/24/texas-border-wire-supreme-court/) with the US Border Patrol. The convoy has been promoted by Texas state representative Keith Self, who appeared on Fox Business to speak about the event and posted a link to a news article from the conspiracy-focused The Gateway Pundit about the convoy on [his X account](https://twitter.com/SelfForCongress/status/1750663050816864504). In state-specific subgroups for attendees to organize rideshares and other resources, members are outlining their plans about where along the route they will join up with the convoy. The main part of the convoy will begin in Virginia and will make its way through Florida, Louisiana, and on to Texas. One group member suggested others bring “kits” to the planned rallies so that “if stuff goes down you will be able to protect yourselves and help out.” Another user responded: “I’m in Missouri. I’ll be ready and have my kit full.” Some Telegram users have compared this moment to the American revolution of 1776. “There is a point where we are going to have to get our hands dirty,” one member wrote in the Texas group. “I've dealt with MANY bullies in my life, and I've never been able to reason with them. The one universal language bullies understand is when you push them back.” Another poster shared a quote from far-right figure Jack Posobiec saying the country is on “the verge of civil war with the government,” while one member claimed, without evidence, that the Border Patrol is “letting known terrorists into the US.” A promotional video for the convoy on the website begins with alarms sounding and the words “invasion alert” flashing over what appears to be night-vision footage of people crossing the border. The video also calls back to previous convoys, such as the People’s Convoy [that rolled into Washington, DC, in 2022](https://www.vice.com/en/article/k7wk5y/trucker-convoy-dc-capital-beltway-republicans) to protest Covid-19 lockdowns. However, the administrators of the Telegram group and the convoy’s website are careful to say this will be a peaceful protest and that only “law-abiding citizens” are welcome. The convoy’s website says it’s looking for everyone to join the effort, including “all active and retired law enforcement and military veterans.” The convoy is being organized as tensions over the US–Mexico border escalated this week, when the US Supreme Court lifted an order by a lower court and sided with President Joe Biden’s administration to rule that Border Patrol agents could remove razor wire installed by the Texas National Guard and state troopers. Texas governor Greg Abbott has defied the ruling as the Texas National Guard and state troopers have continued to roll out wire at Shelby Park on the banks of the Rio Grande in Eagle Pass. Republicans have backed Abbott, who stated on January 24 that the state’s right to “defend and protect” itself against an “invasion” of migrants “is the supreme law of the land and supersedes any federal statutes to the contrary.” More than [two dozen Republican governors](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68101927), [Speaker of the House Mike Johnson](https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4428993-speaker-johnson-backs-abbotts-border-invasion-decree/#:~:text=Speaker%20Mike%20Johnson%20(R%2DLa,would%20%E2%80%9Cback%20him%20up.%E2%80%9D), and former president Donald Trump have come out in support of Abbot. “Biden is, unbelievably, fighting to tie the hands of Governor Abbott and the State of Texas, so that the Invasion continues unchecked,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Texas has rightly invoked the Invasion Clause of the Constitution, and must be given full support to repel the invasion.” “The feds are staging a civil war, and Texas should stand their ground.” Representative Clay Higgins, a GOP congressman from Louisiana, posted on X after the Supreme Court issued its ruling. The post was shared widely in online communities populated by far-right extremists, including on The Donald, a far-right message board where some of the planning for the January 6 Capitol riot took place. “There’s no other way to interpret removing a border than outright treason,” a member of The Donald wrote. “The Supreme Court justices who agreed to this deserve to be executed as traitors.” Another added in relation to the judges: “Traitors deserve to die.” On X on Thursday, the hashtags #CivilWar and #StandwithTexas were both trending. _Do you know anything about the Take Back Our Border convoy or its organizers? Send David Gilbert an email at [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) or DM him on X (Twitter) @[daithaigilbert](https://twitter.com/daithaigilbert) for his Signal and WhatsApp number._ During the hourlong interview, Chambers blamed migrants for the fentanyl crisis, which he described as “chemical warfare,” and he called the Biden administration the enemy of the people. Jones described Abbott’s January 24 statement as “the new Declaration of Independence.” Chambers told Jones how he was planning to use the same techniques he claims he used while in the US military fighting the Islamic State to target migrants crossing the border. He echoed Abbott, and described the effort as “domestic internal defense.” Chambers also said that one of the stops on the convoy will be the One Shot Distillery and Brewery in Dripping Springs, Texas, which is owned by Phil Waldron, a former army colonel. Waldron was [central to plotting the January 6 insurrection](https://www.texastribune.org/2023/01/06/texans-jan-6-insurrection/), when he circulated a 38-page PowerPoint presentation to members of Congress that, among other things, called for Trump to declare a state of emergency and seize voting machines. Waldron was listed as an unindicted coconspirator in [Trump’s Georgia election-interference case](https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/17/politics/trump-georgia-30-unindicted-co-conspirators/index.html). And while much of this kind of violent rhetoric is never acted upon, there have been a growing number of incidents [beyond January 6](https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/10/22/jan-6-capitol-riot-facebook/) where online comments have been followed up with real-world action, including when a [man targeted an FBI office](https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/08/12/shiffer-trump-truth-social-fan/) after slamming the agency for searching Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home on Truth Social. Efforts in Congress to find a compromise on border funding [appeared to collapse](https://punchbowl.news/article/mitch-mcconnell-senate-gop-border/?stream=top) earlier this week, but yesterday Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell told reporters that talks were still “ongoing.”

As Texas goes, so goes the nation – that’s the message from journalist Lawrence Wright in his 2018 book [God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jun/02/god-save-texas-journey-america-lawrence-wright-review). Wright, a New Yorker writer and nearly lifelong Texan, posited that Texas, not California or New York or any other state with an outsized role in the national imagination, would be the model of the future. Whether or not you agree – the state has a reputation for pride, for better and for worse – Texas is as good as any mirror to the national condition, to American fantasies and realities. Vast, diverse and frequently contradictory, it’s a state wrangling with the urban/rural divide, increasingly polarized politics, energy dependence and the fractious practice of a national border. Wright, a longtime resident of Austin, pronounced the future of America back in 2018, when the El Paso son Beto O’Rourke’s close run for US Senate prompted a wave of analyses on just how long it would take [Texas](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/texas) to turn blue, and the Trump administration detention of migrant children in cages prompted national outrage. Six years on, Texas remains in the vanguard of national conversations, from Beyoncé to the border. And a new HBO docuseries picks up where the book left off, with three portraits of Texas in three distinct home towns. In the first episode, [Richard Linklater](https://www.theguardian.com/film/richard-linklater), arguably the most prominent Texas film-maker, returns to Huntsville – his east Texas home town that inspired his breakout Dazed and Confused as well as subsequent films Bernie and Everybody Wants Some!! – to grapple with its sprawling prison-industrial complex. Huntsville is home to Sam Houston State University, an African immigrant community and a handful of environmental conservationists. It also supports seven prisons and is the Texas capital for state-sanctioned executions; over a quarter of the town’s residents are incarcerated. The episode is part personal history – Linklater’s mother became an anti-death penalty activist; one stepfather was incarcerated and another worked as a prison guard; several of his high school classmates either ended up behind bars or worked for the correctional system, or both. “These are my people,” he told the Guardian. “Southerners are very leery of outsiders coming in and stereotyping them and painting them with a broad brush, making them look like hicks. I’m very sensitive to that.” And it’s part continuation of a documentary he began filming in 2003, on the day of the scheduled execution of an inmate named Delma Banks. The 44-year-old was, like many death row inmates, a Black man convicted on flimsy evidence, whose family banked on a last-minute legal hail Mary. Banks would have been the 300th inmate executed in Texas since the state resumed capital punishment in 1976, if not for a [last-minute stay](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/mar/14/usa.duncancampbell) issued by the supreme court. Linklater was outside the prison in Huntsville, filming his family and contemplating the level of outrage if Texas executed an innocent man. [ God Save Texas by Lawrence Wright review – the future of America? ](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jun/02/god-save-texas-journey-america-lawrence-wright-review) Twenty-one years later, the answer is clear: not much. Texas has executed innocent people to little fanfare; DNA evidence has exonerated more. Linklater and I spoke on the eve of the scheduled execution of [Ivan Cantu](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/24/what-i-learned-about-the-us-death-penalty-from-the-next-man-to-be-executed), whose murder conviction is [riddled with inconsistencies](https://www.texastribune.org/2024/02/08/texas-execution-ivan-cantu/) and recanted testimony. “Our governor, the DA in this town, the prosecutor – they’re just making a really cruel, murderous choice,” said Linklater. “It’s just so horrific in its implications. The cruelty is the point, you know? We’re going to do it anyway. It’s kind of like lynching – we just want to put a little fear, break all norms.” Linklater’s 89-minute episode explores not just the death penalty but the people it implicates – families of the inmates and the victims, wardens, civil rights attorneys, activists. The prism of perspectives only underscores his argument against the death penalty, as a circle of unnecessary pain in the name of toughness. “The closer you get to it, the more you see how much it costs, the toll it takes – I’m more against it than ever,” he said. “I don’t feel like I’m connected to my government right now,” he added of Cantu’s scheduled death. “This isn’t us. This can’t be.” [](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2024/feb/28/richard-linklater-interview-hbo-god-save-texas#img-2) Director Alex Stapleton, right, and Marcus Washington. Photograph: HBO In his book, Wright, who appears in each episode as an interlocutor of sorts, puts the model of the American city not on Austin, the [nation’s fastest-growing metro area](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/02/13/the-astonishing-transformation-of-austin), but Houston, the country’s third largest and most diverse city, its sprawl of largely immigrant communities owing, in part, to its infamous lack of zoning laws. The show’s second episode, The Price of Oil, interrogates the energy capital of America’s spectacular growth, its myths of unregulated industry, and the erasure of Black Texas. “Black Texans, we have been here since the beginning,” said director Alex Stapleton, who returned to her home town of Houston after years away during filming. And yet their role is largely underplayed in Texas’s official, school-taught history. Stapleton’s family goes back over 150 years in Texas – back to its founding stories of renegade independence, so favored in cries of “remember the Alamo!” and to Juneteenth, when enslaved people in Texas were informed of their emancipation, two years after the fact. Less noted is the fact that Texas fought for independence over slavery, which had been abolished in Mexico. “It’s disturbing that there’s just generations of children that are growing up and not understanding that,” said Stapleton. “We don’t have to live in the pain every day, but we have to understand our history in order to have real community and real conversation about how to deal with the problems we have today.” Stapleton’s episode, like Linklater’s, weaves family history with the story of Texas at large – in her case, family living in Pleasantville, one of the first master-planned, middle-class communities for Black homeowners in the US, with the tolls of environmental pollution right nextdoor. “How can we even talk about solutions without having representatives from these communities sitting at the table in a major way?” said Stapleton. Energy in Texas, from oil and gas to renewables to chemical production, is “so intertwined with politics”, she added. “We say separation of church and state, but where’s our separation of industry and state? That doesn’t really exist here.” The final episode, La Frontera, shifts to El Paso, a US border city that’s really two – it’s sister city, Juárez, sits just over the Rio Grande; from some viewpoints, as captured by Iliana Sosa, you can’t tell where one city ends and another begins. The border is “a very misunderstood region of Texas”, said Sosa, raised in El Paso by Mexican immigrants. “It’s a feeling, it’s a region, it’s a community,” she said. “Above all, it’s a very special community that’s been able to be really resilient in spite of the stereotypes that have been imposed on it.” The border is often framed as a specter of violence – heralded by Trump and others as a crisis, as destruction to come. Sosa understands a real crisis of violence in Mexico – “I don’t want to at all diminish the importance of what’s happened in terms of femicides and just the cartels. It’s been horrific, and it’s marked that region terribly,” she said. But she also sought to explore “[in-betweenness](https://www.texasmonthly.com/arts-entertainment/what-god-save-texas-gets-right-about-border/)” – “of being from here but not being from there, of growing up first-generation”. And to capture a different meaning of crisis – of fear, after the El Paso Walmart shooting targeting Latino immigrants that killed 23 people in 2019, and of identity, as families remain separated by legal status. [](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2024/feb/28/richard-linklater-interview-hbo-god-save-texas#img-3) El Paso, Texas. Photograph: HBO In one heartbreaking scene, Sosa observes #HugsNotWalls, a once-a-year, border patrol-sanctioned event in which separated families can hug their loved ones for five minutes on a float in the Rio Grande canal. “I don’t understand why we’re at the point, in this country, where an event like that needs to exist,” said Sosa of what she calls a “spectacle of human pain in lieu of any real solution”. Any reasonable, humane solution to these crises seems, for now, politically unviable. “What continues to be true with immigration and border policy is that instead of focusing on the humanity of these families, the politics, the rhetoric, it’s very black and white,” said Sosa. “It’s very, ‘This is the way, or this is not.’ Or, ‘Let’s close down the border.’ It’s a very hard line that I think a lot of people, especially our governor, are taking, that we forget they’re also humans.” As Texas goes, so goes the nation – for better or for worse, as the series suggests. “Whether anyone likes it or not, they should be paying attention to Texas,” said Linklater who, like Sosa and Stapleton, notes the resistance to state Republican politics in each of their towns. “There are blueprints that are being designed by people here that are fighting back,” said Stapleton. “How can you learn from us, but also how can you help us?” * God Save Texas is now available on Max in the US and will be out in the UK at a later date

/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73223102/GettyImages_2064210471.0.jpg) Supporters of former US President and 2024 presidential hopeful Donald Trump hold images of Laken Riley before he speaks at a “Get Out the Vote” rally in Rome, Georgia, on March 9, 2024. Riley, a nursing student, has become the face of immigration reform after her murder allegedly by an illegal immigrant on February 22, 2024. Elijah Nouvelage/AFP via Getty On the evening of February 23, reports spread that the suspect in the killing of Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student who was murdered while out jogging on the University of Georgia campus, had entered the US illegally. That night, the conservative writer Ryan James Gidursky wrote in a [viral post](https://twitter.com/RyanGirdusky/status/1761242217920815584) on X, “If only people went to the streets to demand change in the name of Laken Riley, like they did for George Floyd.” Now, the Trump campaign is trying to make Riley the face of its argument that [Joe Biden](https://www.vox.com/joe-biden)’s border policies have deadly consequences. During the State of the Union address, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) triggered an unscripted moment from Biden, in which he tried to address Riley’s death. Before a Georgia rally on March 9, Trump [met some of Riley’s family members](https://www.ajc.com/politics/trump-meets-with-laken-rileys-parents-before-georgia-rally/4Q54AIGH3JCGHKLIXFUN3I3HPU/), while his campaign team handed out [pictures of Riley](https://twitter.com/KateSullivanDC/status/1766595408732520579) to the crowd. And this past weekend, Trump [mentioned Riley repeatedly](https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-reveals-very-first-actions-hell-take-president-during-ohio-rally-hammers-bidens-border-policies) at another rally in Ohio. Trump has demagogued unauthorized immigrants as dangerous criminals since his [first campaign](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/06/16/theyre-rapists-presidents-trump-campaign-launch-speech-two-years-later-annotated/) for president, and this year he’s returning to that familiar theme, accusing immigrants of “[poisoning the blood](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/17/us/politics/trump-fox-interview-migrants.html)” of the country. But while he has hosted rallies before that [featured family members](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/04/us/politics/trump-angel-families-bond-backlash.html) of people killed by unauthorized immigrants, Riley’s death seems set up to be more central to his campaign messaging than any of these prior tragedies. Trump evidently thinks he can lay it directly at his opponent’s feet, blaming Biden’s failure to control the border (and changing the subject from [Trump’s own role](https://www.vox.com/politics/2024/1/25/24050278/senate-immigration-border-ukraine-trump-mcconnell-romney) in scuttling Biden’s bipartisan border security bill). He’s also trying to argue that Riley’s death isn’t an isolated tragedy, but part of a [larger trend](https://twitter.com/TeamTrump/status/1769797297959792856) of “[migrant crime](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/trumps-claims-migrant-crime-wave-are-not-supported-national-data-rcna140896)” — once again smearing a vast and diverse group of people as criminals. And now, activists and commentators on the right are blatantly trying to mirror the rhetoric and tactics used by activists against [police violence](https://www.vox.com/police-violence). “Say her name!” Greene and others on the right have said — the demand [activists on the left made](https://apnews.com/article/say-her-name-black-women-laken-riley-2b4a036e14feb929131ea0a4ff2f9ffd) about Black women who were victims of police violence, [such as Breonna Taylor](https://www.vox.com/2020/5/13/21257457/breonna-taylor-louisville-shooting-ahmaud-arbery-justiceforbreonna). Democrats have a tricky task in responding. They don’t want to be seen as dismissing or excusing any individual tragedy, but they also don’t want to give in to demagoguery and xenophobia against immigrants — the vast, vast majority of whom [are not violent criminals](https://www.cato.org/blog/illegal-immigrants-have-low-homicide-conviction-rate-setting-record-straight-illegal-immigrant) and who simply are seeking better lives for themselves and their families. The tightrope they’re walking was evident after the State of the Union, during which Biden described Riley’s accused killer, Jose Antonio Ibarra, as “an illegal” — repeating Greene’s phrasing. Many Latinos [view that as an offensive term,](https://www.foxnews.com/world/almost-half-of-latino-voters-find-illegal-immigrant-offensive-says-poll) and Biden later said [he regretted](https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/watch/exclusive-biden-says-he-regrets-calling-migrant-an-illegal-during-state-of-the-union-speech-206028869556) using it. The awkward reality is that Biden is, indeed, vulnerable to critique that he has mishandled border policy. But Trump is characteristically spreading nonsense, falsehoods, and hate, using this tragedy for political gain and hoping it will propel him back into the White House. ### How Laken Riley’s accused killer made it into the US On September 8, 2022, about 17 months before Laken Riley was killed, Jose Antonio Ibarra [was arrested](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jose-ibarra-suspect-murder-georgia-nursing-student-illegal-entry-venezuela/) in El Paso, Texas, with his girlfriend and her 5-year-old son for crossing the border illegally. (Their home country is Venezuela.) The family was soon released into the United States. Their release shouldn’t be a surprise — many migrants whom officials encounter at the border are released into the US after processing. That happens for several reasons. The US government has limited detention capacity and deportation resources. A huge number of migrants keep arriving and overwhelming those resources. And there’s a legal process that allows migrants seeking asylum to contest their removal and stay in the US while their cases are adjudicated. There’s another reason particular to migrants coming from countries with which the US has hostile relations, like Venezuela. In September 2022, the Venezuelan government was refusing to accept deportees sent by the US — and Mexico [wasn’t accepting them](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/12/us/politics/biden-venezuela-migrants-humanitarian-parole.html) either. With deportation not an option for Ibarra, the only alternative to releasing him would have been indefinite detention. But again, there’s limited detention capacity — at that point, ICE had about 26,000 people detained, but more than 1 million arriving migrants [had been released to the US](https://www.ice.gov/doclib/eoy/iceAnnualReportFY2022.pdf) that year while their cases played out. The Department of Homeland Security has not publicly commented on Ibarra’s case or the decision to release him. According [to the New York Post](https://nypost.com/2024/03/08/us-news/migrant-charged-with-murdering-laken-rileys-easy-path-to-us/), ICE records state Ibarra was released due to lack of detention capacity. After his release, Ibarra settled with his family in New York, married his girlfriend, and worked for food delivery services and a restaurant before having two brushes with the law. The first was last August, when Ibarra was doing food deliveries in New York on a moped — while riding with his young stepson, who had no helmet or restraints. He was [arrested then](https://nypost.com/2024/02/24/us-news/migrant-suspect-in-laken-reilly-murder-was-busted-in-nyc-for-child-endangerment/) for endangering the welfare of a child, but the case was sealed and he was released. The second was last October in Athens, Georgia, where Ibarra had moved [to live with his brother](https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/clarke-county/jose-diego-ibarra-court-documents-reveal-immigration-criminal-past-united-states/SPXOP242MNF3NPCCRCCB4DZSQU/#:~:text=Athens%2DClarke%20police%20Chief%20Jeffrey,where%20Riley%27s%20body%20was%20found.) — he and his brother [were issued citations](https://www.ajc.com/news/suspect-in-student-death-at-uga-cited-for-october-shoplifting-in-athens/KQNKOZMOLJBINHW4HQQXXZJ27Q/) after being accused of shoplifting from a Walmart. Neither of these incidents in and of themselves show violent, and certainly not murderous, behavior. That is, however, what authorities argue Ibarra did to Riley in February, with police saying [surveillance camera footage](https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/who-is-jose-antonio-ibarra-man-arrested-for-murder-of-laken-riley-on-uga-campus) links him to the crime. (A neighbor [has claimed](https://twitter.com/alcaprari23/status/1762576180392128908) that a surveillance camera recorded Ibarra disposing of bloody clothes.) ### Was Riley’s murder an unusual, isolated tragedy — or a policy failure? The Trump campaign’s attempt to make this a broader critique of Biden’s border policies relies on two main arguments — both misleading. First, the argument that unauthorized immigrants commit more violent crime: Trump’s false claim, repeated endlessly since his first presidential campaign announcement speech in June 2015, has been that unauthorized immigrants are highly likely to be dangerous and violent criminals. Critics often respond to this by pointing to studies showing that immigrants in general (including legal immigrants) commit crimes at rates [far lower](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/illegal-immigrants-and-crime-how-big-a-problem-is-crime-committed-by-immigrants/) than native-born Americans. Ascertaining crime rates for unauthorized immigrants specifically is tougher, because state and local governments typically don’t collect or keep that data in a systemized way. But the state of Texas does, so Alex Nowrasteh of the Cato Institute [looked into the numbers there](https://www.cato.org/blog/illegal-immigrants-have-low-homicide-conviction-rate-setting-record-straight-illegal-immigrant). Nowrasteh found that, in 2015, 43 unauthorized immigrants were arrested who were later convicted of homicide in Texas. That amounts to a rate of 2.4 per 100,000 in the population — a slightly lower homicide conviction rate than native-born Americans in the state, who were convicted at a rate of 2.8 per 100,000. (A conservative think tank [has disputed](https://cis.org/Richwine/Catos-Brazenly-False-Claim-About-Our-Illegal-Immigrant-Crime-Research) the numbers, saying there were somewhat more convicted killers, but Nowrasteh argues they are [double-counting](https://www.alexnowrasteh.com/p/the-center-for-immigration-studies) some of them.) So, contra Trump’s portrayals, unauthorized immigrants don’t appear to be more likely to be violent criminals. “Few people are murderers, and illegal immigrants are statistically less likely to be murderers,” Nowrasteh writes. The second argument is that this is a predictable result of Biden’s border policy: Trump’s other claim is that Biden specifically has botched the handling of immigration and border policy — and that Riley’s death is just one example of this. Biden [has acknowledged](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/01/26/statement-from-president-joe-biden-on-the-bipartisan-senate-border-security-negotiations/) that the situation at the border is “broken.” But he argues that this failure isn’t his fault, saying he lacks the resources and legal authority to get things under control. That’s why, he says, he negotiated a bipartisan border bill, which passed the Senate — but the House [killed it at Trump’s behest](https://www.vox.com/politics/2024/1/25/24050278/senate-immigration-border-ukraine-trump-mcconnell-romney) for political reasons. The reality is more complicated. The Biden administration has [long been torn](https://www.vox.com/2023/12/14/23981077/immigration-deal-biden-senate-asylum-ukraine) between progressives’ impulse to help more immigrants and moderates’ concerns about practical and political problems posed by millions of new migrants arriving per year. Various policies they’ve rolled out in hope of deterring new arrivals [have not succeeded](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/02/15/migrant-encounters-at-the-us-mexico-border-hit-a-record-high-at-the-end-of-2023/#:~:text=The%20U.S.%20Border%20Patrol%20had,224%2C000%20encounters%20in%20May%202022.). The fact that the president waited until late 2023, when Ukraine aid suddenly seemed at risk, to seriously negotiate with Republicans on a border bill also may call into question his urgency in addressing the topic. But reality is also more complicated than Trump’s promises that he’ll fix everything by getting tougher once he’s president. Trump, recall, was president before, and he did not end illegal immigration — in fact, the number of migrants arriving at the southern border [soared in 2019](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/03/02/how-border-apprehensions-ice-arrests-and-deportations-have-changed-under-trump/), his third year in office (though the pandemic drove the numbers back down the following year). He would adopt more aggressive policies than Biden, but he would face the same challenges, such as limited detention and deportation resources, lengthy asylum adjudication processes, and an inability to send people back to hostile countries. Trump [will certainly try](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/11/us/politics/trump-2025-immigration-agenda.html) to dramatically ramp up detention and enforcement in hopes of deterring new arrivals. But [conditions](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/21/world/americas/venezuela-economy-wealth-gap.html) [are so](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-03-19/communist-cuba-is-on-the-brink-of-collapse?sref=qYiz2hd0) [miserable](https://www.vox.com/world-politics/2023/3/26/23657163/haitis-gang-violence-crisis-explained) in many of these migrants’ home countries that, for many, it will likely still be worth it to roll the dice and try to get to the US. ### Trump is exploiting the issue for political benefit When news of Riley’s death first broke, but before law enforcement officials had identified the suspect, one viral post on X adopted a different frame. “My mind finds it incomprehensible that in 2024 women STILL cannot go for a run without the possibility of being murdered,” wrote [Simone De Alba](https://twitter.com/Simone_DeAlba/status/1761100391284916301), a news anchor for WUSA9. “Laken Riley was 22 years old, a nursing student at Augusta University. She was murdered on UGA’s campus. Running, folks. That’s it. She was on a damn run.” Soon afterward, the interpretation of Riley’s death as a chilling example of violence against women was swept aside by the right’s focus on the suspect’s immigration status. Conservatives argued that the only relevant fact was that the suspect “shouldn’t be” in the US. But why must that be the only relevant fact? This was a statistically unusual crime in many respects. Murders of young white women by strangers are not common, hence the [media attention](https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-long-american-history-of-missing-white-woman-syndrome) that often accompanies them. And the claim that such a terrible act is typical of unauthorized immigrants is a noxious lie — one that just fans the flames of hate to try to help a presidential candidate win.

A couple of days after speaking to Marcell Jacobs, a call comes through from a member of his team. Amid logistical discussions over where and when the reigning [Olympic 100 metres champion](https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/aug/01/olympics-marcell-jacobs-becomes-the-new-100m-king-with-glory-for-italy) might be available for some photos, she has a message that Jacobs is keen for her to relay. “He wanted to thank you for asking the difficult questions,” she says, “and for giving him the opportunity to answer them.” Those questions have never really ceased for the Italian, whose victory in Tokyo almost three years ago was one of the biggest Olympic athletics surprises of recent times. Initially, they centred on how a former long jumper could have risen so stratospherically that he claimed sprinting’s biggest crown only three months after breaking the 10-second barrier for the first time. [ Molly Caudery: ‘There’s a natural chaos that’s just part of me’ ](https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/mar/23/molly-caudery-natural-chaos-olympic-pole-vault-paris) There was also an awkward association with a nutritionist implicated in a police investigation into the distribution of steroids but later cleared of any criminal wrongdoing. And the unusual case of Jacobs’s subsequent conspicuous absence when he opted not to cash in on his overnight fame, as he dropped out of scheduled races and immediately ended his season after the Tokyo Games. When Jacobs and I last spoke two years ago, he harboured an evident sense of indignation over what he described as “mud-slinging” against him. Life has changed beyond comprehension since that unexpected August evening in the Japanese capital, but new queries have arisen. Why, when he decided to seek new pastures late last year, did he opt for Rana Reider, a coach currently serving a one-year probation for a relationship that “presented a power imbalance” with one of his female athletes? What has happened in the intervening years to cause Jacobs to fail to make 100m finals at consecutive world championships? And, preparing to defend his Olympic title this summer, how concerned is he about his legacy? Is there a fear that he might forever be labelled a one-hit wonder? For the past six months the forgotten man of global sprinting has lived a life of obscurity. Since moving his young family from their home in Rome to a vast luxury gated community in Jacksonville, Florida, last autumn, Italy’s star athlete has embraced his newfound anonymity. Only once has he been recognised away from the track, when he ventured to the local utility office to arrange for his electricity and water to be switched on and stumbled across a keen athletics fan. He takes his children on the school run without eliciting a second glance, hones his golf skills on the course that backs on to his house and frequently unwinds by testing different guns at the local shooting range. “I could go to the shop in my socks and nobody would recognise me, so I can do what I want,” says the invisible man with more than a million social media followers. “It’s a lot different to life in Italy, but it helps me stay emotionally calm.” By the end of last season Jacobs, 29, had decided he needed a change: “New stimulation, new motivation.” The smattering of high points – world indoor and [European titles](https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/aug/16/jacobs-and-luckenkemper-take-sprint-golds-as-asher-smith-pulls-up-in-final) in 2022 – were largely forgotten amid the disappointment of twice failing to make the World Championships 100m final. Only once since setting his 9.80-second European record to win Olympic gold has he run the distance in under 10 seconds. With his name frequently disappearing from start lists as race day approached, he became known more for his absences than his performances. Questions resurfaced. The backlash hurt. “People’s criticism really hit me hard,” he admits. “It came from everywhere – from Italy and abroad. As if I wasn’t competing because I was afraid. I’ve never been afraid of anything in my life. I wasn’t competing because I wasn’t able to. It was a difficult time because you train to get results and not getting them was hard. The two post-Olympic years were difficult years. I really needed something that would spark me.” The underlying problem, he explains, was physical and “complicated”; an issue with his back and sciatic nerve that was tricky to diagnose and resolve. But he also realised that to stand any chance of retaining his Olympic title would require “radical change … not just physical but emotional, within myself”. [](https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/mar/30/marcell-jacobs-interview-100m-olympics-champion-italy-criticism#img-2) Marcell Jacobs pips Akani Simbine and Fred Kerley to win Olympic gold in 2021, since when the Italian has struggled. Photograph: Anne-Christine Poujoulat/AFP/Getty Images Upon leaving Paolo Camossi – Jacobs’s coach from his days as a moderately successful long jumper – he eschewed other options in Italy and instead relocated to a country that contains a complicated personal history. Born in El Paso, Texas, to an American father and Italian mother, Jacobs moved to Italy aged six months and did not see his father for more than a dozen years until an awkward family reunion. Since returning to the country of his birth, he has spent time rekindling relationships with his father’s side of the family – many of whom live in Florida – but admits: “I’m a very circumspect person so it’s a bit difficult.” While his English has improved greatly alongside the fame and demands his Olympic triumph has brought, he conducts the majority of this interview through a translator after initially attempting to give the first few answers in his second language. The driving force behind the Florida move was the opportunity to work with Reider, one of the world’s premier sprint coaches, but someone subject to an 18-month investigation into sexual misconduct allegations, which [concluded in a one-year probation](https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/may/10/world-athletics-rana-reider-sanction-report). Reider’s lawyer said his client had “acknowledged a consensual romantic relationship with an adult athlete, which presented a power imbalance”. [skip past newsletter promotion](https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/mar/30/marcell-jacobs-interview-100m-olympics-champion-italy-criticism#EmailSignup-skip-link-19) Sign up to The Recap The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend’s action **Privacy Notice:** Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our [Privacy Policy](https://www.theguardian.com/help/privacy-policy). We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google [Privacy Policy](https://policies.google.com/privacy) and [Terms of Service](https://policies.google.com/terms) apply. after newsletter promotion Jacobs explains: “I was really looking for a coach who didn’t have any qualms, hesitations or insecurities about training an Olympic champion. Obviously, I did check the situation before I signed on with him. I didn’t sign on to be his best friend. I signed on to work with him. But of course, I did make sure that all the accusations were concluded before I signed on with him. “I feel completely happy with the choice I made. I repeat, I am here to train as hard as I can. I’m here for results and I feel at peace with the choice I’ve made.” That decision has landed him in arguably the toughest male sprint training group anywhere in the world. Where Jacobs was head and shoulders above anyone else in Italy, now he works with the reigning Olympic 200m champion, Andre De Grasse, America’s double world 100m medallist Trayvon Bromell, the world 4x100m champion, Jerome Blake, a Canadian teammate of De Grasse, and the sub-10sec runner Abdul Hakim Sani Brown of Japan: five men with aspirations of making the Olympic 100m final and challenging the gold medal favourite, Noah Lyles. [](https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/mar/30/marcell-jacobs-interview-100m-olympics-champion-italy-criticism#img-3) Marcell Jacobs moved to Florida to work with the coach Rana Reider. Photograph: Malcolm Jackson/The Guardian In an event that creates prowling lions of its protagonists, surely the clash of egos is a recipe for disaster? “As soon as I started training with the group, the thing I wondered was why I’d been training by myself for such a long time. Training in the group is incredibly motivational. Right now, we’re a group that pushes each other on and supports each other. We are there for each other. Sure, we’ll be competing against each other. We’ll have to see what happens over the next few months but right now everybody is just training together. The companionship of training together is really meaningful to me.” On the subject of his other troublesome professional relationship – with Italian nutritionist Giacomo Spazzini – Jacobs remains unyielding. In the immediate aftermath of the Tokyo 100m gold, Spazzini claimed credit for helping to turn Jacobs into an Olympic champion, only for it to emerge that he was implicated in a police investigation into the distribution of steroids. Spazzini was cleared in a criminal court, but reportedly handed a 15-year doping ban later rescinded on appeal. Jacobs was never suspected of any wrongdoing nor part of the police investigation. At the time Jacobs insisted he had already cut ties with Spazzini as soon as the case emerged, and he now confirms he has had no contact with him since. Jacobs maintains he acted as quickly as he could, and believes the level of criticism and doubt levelled at him after his Tokyo triumph was only partly due to the association with Spazzini. “I don’t think all the ugliness that came after the Olympics came from him specifically,” he says. “I think there was a lot of shock and discomfort with an Italian winning 100m gold. With hindsight, I wish I’d known about his issues before. But I didn’t. I wasn’t aware so there’s nothing much I can do about that. If I could go back, obviously I would have done things differently if I’d known. But I didn’t. You can’t change the past.” There is an audible note of defiance in his voice; a sense of contempt for those who have sought to denounce or belittle his Olympic achievement. That number has only seemed to swell in his relatively fallow, troubled years since, but he insists his motivation to upset the odds again this summer in Paris is internal and does not stem from a desire to prove anything to others. “Winning a second gold wouldn’t make that much of a change to me and my image,” says Jacobs, who is preparing to make his seasonal return in April. “Of course it would be positive, but coming from a country where no one before me had won an Olympic gold medal in the 100m, what I did was historic and it will always be historic. “Over the years I’ve learned that I have to focus on what I want and what I believe I can do. Not to show others, but to show myself. A lot of things have happened in the two and a half years since I won gold, so I need to show myself what I can do.”

Six years after his arrest, a former member of the Atomwaffen Division will face trial in a southern [California](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/california) courtroom over the killing of his former high school classmate – a murder that rocketed the neo-Nazi group to international notoriety and highlighted the wave of violence by far-right American extremists during the presidency of Donald Trump. Sam Woodward was arrested on 15 January 2018 and charged with the murder of Blaze Bernstein, a former fellow student at the Orange County School of the Arts. Bernstein, a gay and Jewish pre-med student, had been missing for a week before his body was discovered in a shallow grave. On the night of 10 January 2018, the two men met at Borrego Park in the Orange county city of Lake Forest, according to Orange county sheriff’s reports. Bernstein was home from the University of Pennsylvania on winter break, and re-established contact with his former high school classmate through Tinder, where the two had previously connected. Bernstein did not hide his identity as a gay man. Although Woodward was not open about his, while in high school he made passes at more than one of his male classmates, according to [reporting in Mother Jones](https://www.motherjones.com/criminal-justice/2019/03/how-a-gay-teen-an-internet-nazi-and-a-late-night-rendezvous-turned-to-tragedy/). [](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/07/neo-nazi-killing-blaze-bernstein-sam-woodward#img-2) Blaze Bernstein in an undated photo. Photograph: Orange county sheriff’s department Bernstein’s body was found with 19 stab wounds. Investigators’ attention quickly turned to Woodward, the well-off son of an observant, conservative Catholic family from Newport Beach. In interviews with an investigator from the Orange county sheriff’s department shortly after Bernstein went missing, the [investigator later testified in court](https://www.cbs8.com/article/news/california-man-to-stand-trial-for-gay-students-slaying/509-17f6bbad-c197-4d5a-b109-3e40ae5f7c4b), Woodward claimed his classmate had tried to kiss him that night at Borrego Park and that he found homosexuality “disgusting”. [](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/07/neo-nazi-killing-blaze-bernstein-sam-woodward#img-3) A memorial for Blaze Bernstein at Borrego Park in Foothill Ranch, California, on 9 January 2019. Photograph: Paul Bersebach/Orange County Register via Getty Images Two days after Woodward spoke with the investigator, rain washed away the shallow layer of dirt that had covered Bernstein’s body. Police found a knife with Bernstein’s blood on the blade in Woodward’s room, and blood was also recovered from Woodward’s car. Woodward was charged with murder and possession of a deadly weapon – charges that were appended in late 2018 with hate crime enhancements, following reporting by ProPublica on the Atomwaffen Division’s internal Discord server and on bigoted, anti-Jewish posts by Woodward there. Woodward has pleaded not guilty. Descent into neo-Nazism ----------------------- On the exterior, Woodward in his teenage years cultivated a macho persona that bordered on racist, re-enacting the infamous curb-stomping scene from American History X with a friend in a photo he later posted on social media. Though Woodward participated in the Eagle Scouts, much of his social life took place online, particularly on the iFunny app, where he went by the handle “Saboteur” and found friendship with young neo-fascists. By early 2017, Woodward and a Texan friend who went by Kruuz were participating in the online chats of Vanguard America, a far-right group whose members included James Alex Fields Jr, the man found guilty of murdering Heather Heyer in Charlottesville. Kruuz and Woodward sought out an even more radical group willing to take action, and fell into the orbit of the Atomwaffen Division, whose aggressive online propaganda and emphasis on armed white nationalist insurrection marked the outer bounds of the 2010s “alt-right” universe. [](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/07/neo-nazi-killing-blaze-bernstein-sam-woodward#img-4) Sam Woodward, right, with another member of the Atomwaffen Division. Photograph: Obtained by the Guardian Woodward spent the summer of 2017 in Texas with Kruuz, working construction, drifting from one motel room to another, training in firearms with the Atomwaffen Division’s Texas cell, posing for propaganda photographs with fellow neo-Nazi militants and visiting the group’s ideologue, James Mason, in Denver. By that fall, Woodward had moved back in with his parents in Newport Beach, working construction, boxing with another far-right group and hanging with Kruuz, who had moved west with Woodward and ran Atomwaffen’s California cell. It was at this stage of Woodward’s life, when he penned diary entries about “pranking” and “cucking” gay men he met on apps like Tinder and Grindr, that the budding neo-Nazi reconnected with Bernstein. The threat of Atomwaffen ------------------------ Bernstein’s death exposed to the world the shadowy and violent neo-fascist Atomwaffen, which had previously confined itself to flyering and online propaganda. One Atomwaffen member [pleaded guilty](https://www.tampabay.com/news/crime/2023/05/08/6-years-later-tampa-neo-nazi-murder-case-ends-with-guilty-plea/) to the May 2017 homicides of two fellow members of the group in Tampa, Florida. Another member was [charged](https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/22/giampa-records-release-fairfax/) over the Christmas 2017 killings of his ex-girlfriend’s parents in Virginia. In all, five deaths have been linked to the group. Both the Florida and Virginia cases were dragged out over issues of mental competency. In May 2023, the Florida member [pleaded guilty](https://www.tampabay.com/news/crime/2023/05/08/6-years-later-tampa-neo-nazi-murder-case-ends-with-guilty-plea/) to the double homicide after previously being declared incompetent to stand trial. He received a life sentence. The Virginia member’s proceedings are ongoing over a number of [challenges](https://law.justia.com/cases/virginia/court-of-appeals-unpublished/2022/1048-22-4.html) in state appeals courts about his alleged mental illnesses and the admissibility of his hospital-bed confession. Woodward’s trial has faced similar lengthy delays. Woodward has switched defense attorneys several times since 2018, and his defense team has repeatedly highlighted his Asperger’s diagnosis as justification for why he should be declared unfit for trial. In 2021, the then newly elected Orange county district attorney, Todd Spitzer, called the then three year delay (partially due to the Covid-19 pandemic) in Woodward’s case “unreasonable”, but was unable to advance the case until last summer. Jury selection was started and swiftly abandoned in early March after Woodward threw a cup of water at the judge. [](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/07/neo-nazi-killing-blaze-bernstein-sam-woodward#img-5) Sam Woodward with other Atomwaffen Division members. Photograph: Obtained by The Guardian Opening statements are slated to start on Monday, with the trial expected to last three months. In addition to the particulars of Bernstein’s killing, court proceedings will plumb the inner workings of the Atomwaffen Division: at least three former members of the neo-Nazi militant group are on the witness list. If convicted, Woodward faces life in prison without the possibility of parole. Atomwaffen was dismantled by a sprawling federal investigation that became public in 2020. The group is banned in Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia, where it spawned several offshoots. Its legacy has been bloody. Dozens of convicted militants, several [copycat](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63736944) [organizations](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/22/us/white-supremacy-the-base.html) and mass shooters in [Buffalo](https://apnews.com/article/buffalo-supermarket-shooting-gunman-radicalization-2669f6fd9dce881b150577eae885e44f), New York; [El Paso](https://ctc.westpoint.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/CTC-SENTINEL-112019.pdf), Texas; and [Jacksonville](https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/28/us/jacksonville-florida-shooting-what-we-know/index.html), Florida have cited Atomwaffen’s message as their inspiration. Woodward’s attorney, Ken Morrison of the Orange county public defender’s office, cautioned against prejudging his client’s guilt: “For the past 6 years, the public has been reading and hearing a prosecution and muckraking narrative about this case that is simply fundamentally wrong,” Morrison said. “I caution everyone to respect our judicial process and wait until a jury is able to see, hear and evaluate all the evidence before jumping to conclusions about exactly what happened.” Bernstein’s mother, Jeanne Pepper Bernstein, has occasionally spoken to media, but Spitzer requested she limit her media exposure to avoid influencing potential jurors, according to a 2023 interview she gave to the Forward. In that conversation, she noted the impact her son’s killing had on his two siblings. “The children that were 13 years old when this happened to Blaze are 18 now – they’re legal adults,” she said. “Are they ready to live in a world full of violence and hate? Have we done anything in the last five years to instill a sense of humanity in people? I don’t think so.”

 Abandoned tents remain at the migrant camp in Matamoros, Mexico, that is at the center of a controversy involving viral images of a flyer encouraging migrants to vote for President Biden. Verónica Gabriela Cárdenas for NPR April 15 started off as a typical day for Gabriela Zavala. Like usual, she was focused on juggling a busy family life with remotely running a small organization that helps [asylum-seekers](https://www.npr.org/2024/04/22/1244381584/immigrants-border-mexico-asylum-illegal-immigration) in Matamoros, Mexico. But by evening, the 41-year-old's email inbox started to fill with threats. Zavala showed NPR emails, some of which included racist language, that said, "Don't think for one moment that we are not watching," and "kill yourself." The vitriol started after a social media thread from one of the most influential conservative institutions in the U.S. went viral. "BREAKING - Flyers distributed at NGO in Mexico encouraging illegals to vote for President Biden," read [the first post](https://x.com/OversightPR/status/1780054306454167954) in a 10-part thread on X, formerly known as Twitter, posted at 9:03 p.m. U.S. Central time by the Heritage Foundation's [Oversight Project](https://www.heritage.org/oversight). The Heritage Foundation's investigative arm shared an image of the flyer and a video of copies hanging inside portable toilets at a Matamoros migrant camp. Within 12 hours, members of Congress would raise the flyer in hearings with Biden administration officials and use it to justify more restrictive voting laws. To Zavala's surprise, the flyer had her name on it, along with her organization's logo. Zavala told NPR in an April 30 interview that she didn't write it and has no connection to it. The flyer also had a Biden campaign logo, and in awkwardly written Spanish, it read in part, "Reminder to vote for President Biden when you are in the United States. We need another four years of his term to stay open." "I was almost in a state of shock," said Zavala, a U.S. citizen who lives in Texas. "And I said, 'Wow, you know, this is completely untrue.'"  Gabriela Zavala runs a small nonprofit that helps asylum-seekers in Matamoros, Mexico. Gaby Zavala Zavala said her group, [Resource Center Matamoros](https://www.resourcecentermatamoros.com/) (RCM), is focused on helping asylum-seekers and has nothing to do with politics. "We have never encouraged people to vote for anyone," said Zavala, who added that she is well aware that noncitizens are ineligible to vote. She said she would never "tell somebody that can't vote — that I know can't vote — 'Hey, go vote.'" Parts of the thread include a brief snippet of a recorded conversation with Zavala and details about her professional background. The final post in the Heritage thread reads, "This flyer obviously seeks to prey on unsophisticated illegals and encourages them to illegally vote." It quickly racked up more than 9 million views and was boosted by X's owner, Elon Musk. Mike Howell, the executive director of the Heritage Foundation's Oversight Project, said the flyer is "accurate." He also said the thread does not accuse Zavala of authoring it. Yet his organization's posts amplified the flyer, which bears her name, to a large audience, including members of Congress, and highlighted Zavala and her organization. Later [posts](https://x.com/OversightPR/status/1783556915361886551) published by Heritage criticize and attempt to [rebut media efforts](https://x.com/OversightPR/status/1785389297761243164) to fact-check Zavala's purported connection to the flyer. Howell has condemned threats of violence related to the flyer.  NPR's on-the-ground reporting with RCM officials, migrants and other aid workers, along with additional reporting, has found no evidence to support the narrative that there is an effort underway in Matamoros to encourage migrants to vote in U.S. elections. Nor did NPR find any evidence that Zavala has any connection to the flyer besides the obvious fact that someone put her name and logo on it. In an interview with NPR, both Howell and the social media influencer who collaborated on the thread acknowledged that they did not try to verify with Zavala whether she or anyone at RCM created the flyers before they posted on X. (You can read or watch NPR's interview with the Oversight Project [here](https://www.npr.org/2024/05/09/1250252668/transcript-npr-interview-heritage-foundation-oversight-project).) Zavala said she felt "victimized" and kept wondering, "Why would somebody want to do this? Why would somebody want to intentionally create a fake flyer?" The Heritage thread buttressed a key narrative of former President Donald Trump and his allies, who have made false claims about noncitizens swaying election outcomes since 2016 and who [had been emphasizing the issue in the months](https://www.npr.org/2024/03/13/1238102501/noncitizen-voting-immigration-conspiracy-theory) before the flyer appeared online. At a time when U.S. border agencies have been overwhelmed by record-high numbers of asylum-seekers arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border, the [current iteration](https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2024/jan/12/donald-trump/trumps-claim-that-millions-of-immigrants-are-signi/) of [this narrative](https://apnews.com/article/trump-immigrant-voting-noncitizens-elections-explained-cf4c73b336147b5f5d9c2a22b2564994) is that President [Biden is allowing](https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-misinformation-immigrants-parole-biden-trump-musk-dbd634820b3f8d07b859b8a05b2b20a7) migrants to enter the U.S. so they will [illegally vote for him](https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2024/feb/06/elon-musk/elon-musk-is-wrong-to-say-joe-biden-is-recruiting/). "If the ground is being seeded with claims like these," said Jared Holt, a senior research analyst at the [Institute for Strategic Dialogue](https://www.isdglobal.org/about/), an international think tank focused on extremism around the world, "then that may very well be another possible avenue to try to delegitimize democratic processes in this country." ### **Behind the thread** The Heritage thread says the flyer was discovered by [Muckraker](https://www.muckraker.com/), a right-wing video site. Anthony Rubin, the site's founder, often uses undercover tactics in his videos. He has traveled across Latin America to film migrants in transit to the United States. He portrays them as an "invasion" and has [appeared as a guest](https://www.muckraker.com/articles/muckraker-joins-alex-jones-live-in-studio/) on outlets that have spread conspiracy theories, including Alex Jones' Infowars. [Juries in Connecticut and Texas ordered Jones to pay a combined $1.5 billion](https://www.npr.org/2023/12/16/1219848695/alex-jones-sandy-hook-victims-families-settle) to the families of victims of the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., for falsely claiming the shooting was a hoax. In an interview with NPR, Rubin said he was tipped off to the existence of the flyer by a shelter worker in New York who said a migrant had received one in Matamoros. He said the video of the flyers was shot by an anonymous source with a "close connection" to his team.  The Heritage Foundation's building in Washington, D.C., in 2017. The Oversight Project is Heritage's investigative arm. Andrew Harnik/AP [Muckraker's own X account](https://x.com/realmuckraker/status/1780060033335632140) shared the thread about the flyers with the caption, "Claims of illegals being instructed to vote in elections has been labeled a 'conspiracy theory', until now..." The Heritage Foundation launched the Oversight Project in 2022 to investigate and provide "[aggressive oversight](https://www.heritage.org/press/heritage-foundation-launches-oversight-project)" of the Biden administration. Howell declined to comment on the relationship between Heritage and Muckraker or whether Muckraker was being paid for the content. "We're going up against some very powerful and dangerous people to include the cartels, weaponized Biden administration, etc., and we're not interested in giving an org chart out," Howell said, adding that he was glad to work with "anybody across any ideological spectrum who's willing to fight the invasion of the United States." The Heritage thread, in addition to publicizing the flyers, also includes posts that [link RCM](https://x.com/OversightPR/status/1780054311969714540) to [HIAS](https://hias.org/), formerly known as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. It notes that Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas once sat on the board of HIAS, a Jewish organization with offices in 20 countries that aids migrants, asylum-seekers and refugees. Other posts suggest a connection between Zavala and RCM and liberal billionaire George Soros and point out that he has given money to HIAS. While the intent of the posts is unclear, Soros, who is Jewish and a Holocaust survivor, is the target of [many far-right and antisemitic conspiracy theories](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/04/us/politics/george-soros-bragg-trump.html). HIAS released a [statement](https://www.threads.net/@hiasrefugees/post/C514T1mJkNt) saying that it has no connection to the flyers and does not support their message. Beth Oppenheim, the organization's chief advancement officer, said in recent months that HIAS has "increasingly become a target" for misinformation online. She said the other campaigns against HIAS have referenced "[great replacement](https://www.npr.org/2022/05/17/1099233034/the-great-replacement-conspiracy-theory-isnt-fringe-anymore-its-mainstream)" theory, which falsely claims that Jews are bringing immigrants into the U.S. to replace white Americans. [Several mass shooters](https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2022/05/17/racist-great-replacement-conspiracy-theory-explained) have cited the theory as justification for their acts. ### **An unexpected visit** To date, it is unknown who created the flyer. But right away, Zavala said, she understood one piece of the mystery behind the viral social media thread. Earlier on April 15, the same day the thread appeared, two American men wearing flip-flops rang the bell at RCM's building in Matamoros and said they wanted to volunteer. The scene was captured by RCM's security cameras. NPR was given access to the footage. Later, it would become clear that the two men were Anthony Rubin, the founder of Muckraker, and his brother, Joshua Rubin. Anthony Rubin can be heard on security footage saying that he and his brother previously worked with migrants "in Colombia, in Panama." Hugo Terrones, RCM's director, came outside to meet the men, who were never let inside. Terrones said that Anthony Rubin, who was speaking in broken Spanish, claimed he worked for HIAS. That exchange can be faintly made out on the security footage. HIAS briefly rented office space from RCM two years ago.  The director of Resource Center Matamoros, Hugo Terrones, spoke to Muckraker founder Anthony Rubin and his brother after the pair showed up at RCM's office asking about volunteer opportunities. But they were never allowed inside. Verónica Gabriela Cárdenas for NPR Terrones called Zavala and handed over his phone so Rubin could speak with her in English. Zavala said she told Rubin about volunteering at the shelter, which can include tasks such as cleaning or playing with children. Later she would discover a snippet of that brief conversation in [Heritage's X thread](https://x.com/OversightPR/status/1780054310275219952) with a caption saying Zavala implied that "she wants to help as many illegals as possible before President Trump is reelected." In the recording, Rubin can be heard saying, "In all honesty, we're just trying to help as many people as possible before Trump gets reelected." Zavala replies with a laugh: "Believe me, we're in the same boat." "It was in the context of volunteering," Zavala told NPR. "Yes, we want to help as many people as we can, you know? And for me, it's like, regardless of who's in office." Rubin did not deny to NPR that he introduced himself as a volunteer and a HIAS worker. "Absolutely, we were down there, and we were inquiring whether or not it would be possible to volunteer," Rubin said. He previously [told _The New York Times_](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/30/us/politics/immigration-disinformation-campaign-biden-trump.html) that he did not recall whether he had said he was with HIAS. A spokesperson for HIAS said Rubin has never been employed by the organization. Terrones told NPR that Rubin had asked him unusual questions, including whether Terrones knew of organizations in the U.S. that help migrants vote for Biden. Terrones said he kept answering, "No." "He kept repeating and was very persistent, asking us if we would vote for Biden," said Terrones. He said Rubin asked, "Biden or Trump?" Rubin said he does not recall what he asked Terrones. In his videos, Rubin often asks migrants similar questions. Rubin told NPR that in those videos, migrants "all say Biden." He said that this means it would be "pretty ridiculous" to think "this would not be then weaponized once they cross the border." Trump enacted a series of escalating policies to [chip away at the U.S. asylum system](https://www.npr.org/2020/06/11/875419571/trump-administration-proposes-rules-to-sharply-restrict-asylum-claims) when he was in office, and he has pledged to [continue](https://time.com/6972021/donald-trump-2024-election-interview/) if he is elected again. Biden was critical of Trump's policies when he ran for president in 2020. Once in office, Biden [continued](https://www.npr.org/2023/05/15/1176041255/immigration-policy-title-42-biden-us-mexico-border) the emergency border policies that Trump enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic that turned away many asylum-seekers until last May, and he [introduced](https://www.npr.org/2023/07/19/1188438846/illegal-border-crossings-are-down-one-big-reason-why-is-now-part-of-a-court-figh) new asylum restrictions. Biden has urged asylum-seekers to use a U.S. government app to make an appointment at a port of entry and avoid crossing the border illegally. But appointment slots are scarce, so migrants arriving in Mexican border cities like Matamoros end up waiting weeks or months in dangerous and difficult conditions. ### **The flyer becomes political fodder** Just 12 hours after the flyer was posted to X, Republican Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Dan Bishop both brought posters of the flyer to a budget hearing with Mayorkas. This was shortly before they [presented articles of impeachment](https://www.npr.org/2024/04/17/1245377914/senate-articles-impeachment-mayorkas-vote) against him. "How can Congress and the American people have confidence that the outcome of close elections will not turn on the votes of noncitizens who have registered and voted unlawfully?" [Bishop asked](https://twitter.com/RepDanBishop/status/1780260845605232783).  Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., holds a sign showing a screenshot of the viral flyer as Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas testifies before the House Homeland Security Committee on April 16. Allison Bailey/NurPhoto/Reuters The Daily Signal, the Heritage Foundation's news site, later [published a roundup of Republican lawmakers' responses to the flyers](https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/04/17/import-a-new-electorate-congress-alarmed-by-flyers-in-mexico-urging-illegal-aliens-to-vote-biden/), in which many of them called for stricter voting laws. It is already illegal for noncitizens to cast ballots in federal elections, and studies have repeatedly shown [it is rare](https://www.cato.org/blog/noncitizens-dont-illegally-vote-detectable-numbers). The topic gained new attention in April, when Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson promoted federal legislation that would [implement new citizenship documentation requirements](https://www.npr.org/2024/04/12/1244302080/trump-johnson-noncitizen-voting-bill). Gilda Daniels, an election law professor at the University of Baltimore, [recently told NPR](https://www.npr.org/2024/03/13/1238102501/noncitizen-voting-immigration-conspiracy-theory) that requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote would make it much harder for many eligible U.S. citizens, including students, older adults and poor people, to vote. ### **Clumsy translations, defunct phone numbers** Zavala said a "blanket of fear" fell over her in the days after the flyers went viral. **"**I didn't know how to respond. I didn't know if I should respond," Zavala said. "If I say something, is it going to fuel the fire more? Will this cause more death threats?" She shut down her social media accounts as the hateful messages kept coming. She said it bothered her that no one publicizing the flyer on social media or in Congress had checked with her about whether she or anyone at RCM had written it. "They never cared to call me and find out whether it was true or not," Zavala said. "I mean, that really is, you know, an attack on my character as a person." Rubin told NPR that it "certainly occurred to me" to ask RCM to verify the flyer when he visited, but he didn't want to bring attention to himself because he said he had previously been kidnapped by the Gulf Cartel near there. "I need to maintain a low profile here because I am in enemy territory. The cartel literally told me, 'Never come back here again.'" Howell, a former attorney for the Department of Homeland Security, acknowledged that the Oversight Project did not reach out to Zavala before publishing the X thread because "it was in the immediate public interest to know about the invasion in the United States." He added, "Would the United States reach out to the CCP \[Chinese Communist Party\] to verify intelligence about them flooding fentanyl into this country? Of course not." Howell noted that the Heritage Foundation's news outlet, The Daily Signal, sought comment from Zavala after the thread was published. [The first story that The Daily Signal](https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/04/15/group-in-mexico-displays-flyers-urging-illegal-aliens-to-vote-for-biden/) published about the thread, on April 15, does not mention seeking comment from Zavala; only [the second story](https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/04/16/after-discovery-of-vote-for-biden-flyers-in-mexico-mayorkas-cant-say-how-to-stop-illegal-aliens-from-voting/), on April 16, does. The second story says Zavala didn't respond to The Daily Signal. Zavala said there are a number of clues that suggest the flyer was not written by her or anyone at RCM. It contains errors, such as "Bienvedinos" instead of "Bienvenidos" (Welcome). Zavala is not a native Spanish-speaker, but she said she checks the grammar and spelling of what she writes in Spanish. Whoever made the flyer relied heavily on RCM's English-language website, which has dated posts that stop after 2021. Zavala said she has not had the time or resources to update it. The flyer lists a defunct phone number that Zavala said she hasn't used in years but is still listed on the website. The first two sentences of the flyer appear to be an old description of the organization copied directly from the website and run through Google Translate into Spanish. It mentions that HIAS shares the office, an arrangement that ended in 2022, according to both groups. The next two sentences, which remind readers to vote for Biden when they get to the U.S., are written in a different style and are riddled with more errors than the previous ones. That section translates "United States" as "estados unidos," without the usual capitalization, while the previous section uses the abbreviation "los EE. UU." There are also inaccuracies in the X thread. The [thread says](https://x.com/OversightPR/status/1780054308568125854) the site where the video shows the flyers is a "Resource Center Matamoras (RCM) location." But RCM has not staffed the site for years, which was also confirmed to NPR by people from other local nongovernmental organizations who work with migrants. Glady Cañas of Ayudándoles a Triunfar and Andrea Rudnik of Team Brownsville both told NPR that there is no longer a formal camp at that site.  Glady Cañas, president of Ayudándoles a Triunfar, stands outside the organization's offices in Matamoros, Mexico. Verónica Gabriela Cárdenas for NPR NPR visited the site and saw an informal encampment with a small number of migrants staying there, but did not see any evidence of the flyers. Anyone can access the encampment, which is in a city park along the banks of the Rio Grande. Aid workers like Cañas are redirecting migrants who show up at the encampment to shelters. Rubin told NPR that Terrones, RCM's director, gave him a "firsthand" tour of the camp the day he visited, was "letting himself into these different tents" and introduced Rubin to a Russian man who was staying there. "So this idea that they don't have any tie-ins with that camp is total nonsense," said Rubin. Terrones maintains that RCM currently has no role at the site, which he considers closed. He said he took the Rubin brothers to the encampment because he had trouble communicating with them and was trying to tell them it was basically empty. He said he opened tents to show them no one was inside. He said he had met the Russian man weeks earlier when he came to RCM asking for help. Cañas and Rudnik each told NPR that they had never seen the flyers at the encampment or heard about them from other volunteers or migrants. "Somebody would have noticed it," said Rudnik, a co-founder and volunteer with Team Brownsville. "And nobody did." She also said she had never seen any organizations hang flyers in the portable toilets before. "Those port-a-potties are pretty filthy," Rudnik said. "If we wanted people to know something, it would be put in a different place." Migrants who remain at the encampment denied ever seeing the flyers. Orlando Martínez, a 36-year-old from El Salvador, said he has been at the site for over a year and has never seen any such flyers, "nor has anyone come to say we should vote for Biden." He was among just a handful of people present when NPR visited on the afternoon of April 29.  Orlando Martínez, from El Salvador, has been living at a migrant camp in Matamoros for more than a year. He says that he has not seen the flyers and that no one has told him to vote in U.S. elections. Verónica Gabriela Cárdenas for NPR "No one who crosses illegally can vote," Martínez said. He said he knows the same is true for those who make an appointment to enter through a U.S. port of entry. There was no evidence of flyers in sight when NPR toured RCM's building. Asylum-seekers who have been at RCM for weeks as they wait for their appointments at the border told NPR they had not seen the flyer or been encouraged to vote in the U.S. either. ### **A second thread** Zavala decided to break her silence and gave a brief comment to The Associated Press. The [April 17 story](https://apnews.com/article/migrants-shelter-flyer-mexico-voting-conspiracy-theories-e02f14ef0763684f2919dc84e9ef2458) reported that Zavala said she hadn't made the flyer, did not know who had, and does not encourage immigrants to vote. Other fact-checking organizations, including [PolitiFact](https://www.politifact.com/article/2024/apr/19/did-a-nongovernment-organization-in-mexico-encoura/) and [Lead Stories](https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2024/04/fact-check-ngo-flyer-encouraging-migrants-to-vote-for-biden-is-not-authentic.html), published articles citing Zavala's denial to the AP and the flyer's Spanish-language errors. Among those who questioned the Heritage thread was Fox News national correspondent Bill Melugin, who regularly covers border issues. "I am extremely skeptical of this," Melugin [posted on X](https://x.com/BillMelugin_/status/1780281200143409659). "There's plenty of controversy with some NGO's, but this flier seems fake or doctored, even at first glance." Heritage has stood by its story. On April 25, 10 days after the initial thread, Heritage released a [second X thread](https://x.com/OversightPR/status/1783556912035852653). It [criticizes "legacy media"](https://x.com/OversightPR/status/1783556915361886551) for discrediting the flyer based on Zavala's denial and the translation errors. It points out that Zavala is not a native Spanish-speaker. In an interview with NPR, Howell added, "The counterattack \[against the story\] has provided absolutely zero evidence. Our international bombshell reporting has stood the test of all scrutiny and will withstand some more." The second X thread also included an excerpt of an affidavit with the name and signature apparently redacted. The affidavit's author claimed to have seen 40 copies of the flyer "inside the shelter," which appears to be a reference to RCM. The author says that they took a flyer to their home and that the next day they saw a similar flyer inside the portable toilets at the camp and recorded a video. "The individual who authored the affidavit is somebody that we have a close connection with," Rubin said. "This isn't some random individual." Howell said they wouldn't give more details about the affidavit's author. "Obviously we're protecting our sources and methods on this." NPR was unable to verify the [affidavit's account](https://x.com/OversightPR/status/1783556912035852653), which is dated April 19, four days after Heritage's first thread was published. The affidavit gives no time frame for when the events it describes occurred. Heritage's X thread calls the migrant camp a "[hotbed for political activity](https://x.com/OversightPR/status/1783556918096630266)." It includes photos of a tour that Jill Biden took of the camp when her husband was running for president in 2020, a photo of a Biden campaign sign hanging in the camp in 2021 and a photo showing "Bye Trump" balloons at the camp after the last presidential election. Zavala said RCM, which did work closely with the camp during the time the photos were taken, did not put up any campaign signs. Zavala said she chose not to attend Jill Biden's visit.  The offices of Resource Center Matamoros. The nonprofit works with asylum-seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border. Verónica Gabriela Cárdenas for NPR She said in the lead-up to the 2020 election, some asylum-seekers had been stuck at the camp for well over a year due to Trump administration policies. "All their hopes were riding on a new administration coming in," she said. She said some migrants chose to put up signs "without influence or encouragement by any NGO, including RCM." Rudnik, of Team Brownsville, remembers a volunteer from the U.S., who was not affiliated with an NGO, put up the "Bye Trump" balloons on her own. Zavala said she didn't know about the balloons at the time, but had anyone asked her, "I would have said, 'No, it is not a good idea.'" ### **Sharing her side of the story** By the time Heritage published its second social media thread, Zavala had decided she had to say more publicly. She agreed to talk to a reporter for [_The New York Times_](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/30/us/politics/immigration-disinformation-campaign-biden-trump.html) and then to NPR. "It wasn't enough that I just denied it," Zavala said about the flyer. "I need to share my side of the story. People need to hear what actually happened." Zavala wanted the public to know that the Rubin brothers rang the bell at RCM hours before the thread published. She said while it is clear who publicized the flyers, she doesn't know who made them, who put them in the portable toilets or who created the video. "If I can't tell you exactly who it was and really have it in evidence, I'm not going to go out there and accuse somebody of something," Zavala said. She said even though she felt that whoever made the flyer "smeared" her name and put it through "the entire national public spotlight," she is not willing to do the same to anyone else. She still feels fearful about what having her name associated with this flyer could mean for her, her family and her staff. It weighs on her that acts of violence, like the 2018 mass shooting at the [Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh](https://www.npr.org/2019/10/25/773031898/some-tree-of-life-members-believe-death-penalty-for-shooter-at-odds-with-jewish-) and the 2019 mass shooting [at an El Paso, Texas, Walmart](https://www.npr.org/2023/02/08/1155614286/el-paso-walmart-shooting-guilty-plea-federal-hate-crime-weapons-charges), have been inspired by immigration-themed conspiracy theories. "What if one crazy extremist takes this to heart and says, 'I'm just going to hurt them'?" Zavala said. In an interview with _The New York Times_ [that Heritage shared online](https://x.com/OversightPR/status/1785423999557833053), Howell condemned death threats, saying he gets them "all the time." He added, "No one should do it." Zavala said she will continue to focus on her mission to help asylum-seekers. "There's people fleeing from extreme situations, extreme circumstances," Zavala said. "And if I have the resources and the capability to help them, I will." _NPR's Audrey Nguyen, Texas Public Radio's Gaige Davila and independent journalist Verónica Gabriela Cárdenas contributed reporting to this story. Davila and Cárdenas reported from Matamoros, Mexico._

Three people were killed and 11 others injured in a shooting on Friday morning at a grocery store in Fordyce, Ark., the police said. A shooter opened fire at the Mad Butcher grocery store in Fordyce in Central Arkansas about 11:30 a.m., the Arkansas State Police said in a statement. The shooter, whose name was not released, was shot by the police and injured before being taken into custody, the police said. Eleven people, including two law enforcement officers, were injured in the shooting. The officers had injuries that were not life-threatening. Mike Hagar, the director of Arkansas State Police, said at a news conference that the shooter’s injury was not life-threatening. The conditions of the others who were injured ranged from not life-threatening to “extremely critical,” Mr. Hagar said. The motive for the shooting was unclear. Video and images emerging on social media showed bullet holes in a window of the store, and someone holding what appeared to be a rifle firing shots from the parking lot. David Rodriguez was filling up his car at a nearby gas station when he heard a few pops that he thought were fireworks. Eleven people, including two law enforcement officers, were injured in the shooting on Friday at the Mad Butcher store.Credit...Ainsley Platt/Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, via Associated Press “Then, all the sudden, mass gunfire between the police and whoever was out in the parking lot,” Mr. Rodriguez, 58, of Kingsland, Ark., said in an interview. He took out his phone and started filming the shooting before he realized he had to flee. Matt Gill was in the Mad Butcher, working his shift as a butcher, when he heard the pops. “Everybody was like ‘What’s that noise?’” Mr. Gill, 38, said in an interview. “I said ‘Ma’am, that’s shotgun. We got to go.’” Mr. Gill said he led his co-workers out of the back of the store, but a few store clerks got separated as they fled. Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said on [social media](https://x.com/SarahHuckabee/status/1804222875169063134) that she had been updated on the shooting in Fordyce, a city of about 3,300 residents that is about 70 miles south of Little Rock, Ark. “I am thankful to law enforcement and first responders for their quick and heroic action to save lives,” she wrote. There have been several shootings at stores in recent years. In 2019, [a gunman killed 23 people at a Walmart store in El Paso](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/08/us/texas-walmart-shooting-suspect-plea.html). In 2021, [10 people were killed by a gunman at a grocery store in Boulder](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/23/us/boulder-victims.html), Colo. In 2022, [a gunman killed 10 people at supermarket](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/28/nyregion/buffalo-shooting-guilty-plea.html) in Buffalo.

It was just past 10am, but the west Texas sun already burned high above the border fence, a serpentine steel line slicing the Chihuahuan desert in two. On the US side, a short distance from the Paso del Norte International Bridge, the [Sacred Heart](https://www.jesuitscentralsouthern.org/press-release/sacred-heart-church-in-el-paso-shelters-migrants-seeking-safety/) shelter stirred with activity. Children giggled and shrieked as they chased each other in circles around the converted gymnasium, decorated with brightly colored piñatas, a mural of the Virgen de Guadalupe and a string of plastic flags, a small reminder of the countries they left behind: Venezuela, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, [Mexico](https://www.theguardian.com/world/mexico). Their parents, who carried them across jungles, rivers and entire countries, rested on mats. A mother breastfed her son. A woman braided hair. This shelter is located in the heart of El Paso’s Segundo Barrio, a neighborhood that has served as the entry point for so many generations of immigrants arriving in the United States that it has been called “[the other Ellis Island](https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/the-other-ellis-island/)”. It is here the newest arrivals find a moment of respite – a hot meal, fresh clothes and reliable wifi – suspended briefly in the crucible between a long, perilous journey and an uncertain future in the US; between the troubled places that pushed them out and a nation increasingly determined to keep them out. “_Bienvenido a los Estados Unidos_,” a volunteer said, welcoming a group that had assembled for his presentation on the asylum process, a portal into the labyrinth of immigration codes and policies that holds their fate. Diana, 26, listened carefully. Five months ago, she and her partner, José, 28, fled Venezuela, where a spiraling political, economic and humanitarian crisis has plunged [millions](https://www.unrefugees.org/emergencies/venezuela/#:~:text=More%20than%207.3%20million%20Venezuelans,(as%20of%20February%202023).) into poverty. Together they crossed the Darién Gap, an [inhospitable stretch of rainforest](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/03/record-half-million-people-crossed-darien-gap-2023) between Colombia and Panama. They waited months in Mexico trying unsuccessfully to make an asylum appointment with the US. But Mexico was a dangerous place to be, Diana said, pulling her knees tightly to her chest. They eventually ran out of money. “Despair” crept in, José said, and they decided to continue. The pair surrendered to US authorities on a Sunday in early June, days before Joe Biden [issued an executive order](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jun/04/biden-us-mexico-border-asylum-seekers) essentially suspending – at least temporarily – the country’s longstanding promise that anyone who steps foot on US soil has the right to seek asylum. [](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jun/23/el-paso-texas-us-mexico-border-crackdown#img-2) People walk through the jungle near Bajo Chiquito village, the first border control of the Darién province in Panama, on 22 September 2023. Photograph: Luis Acosta/AFP/Getty Images While political leaders hundreds of miles away in Austin – Texas’s capital – and in Washington clash over the “crisis” at the border, the people of El Paso are grappling with the human side of an [unprecedented wave of global migration](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/26/us-immigration-mexico-border-south-america), driven by economic hardship, extreme weather, conflict and political instability. Though the border city has strained under the weight of receiving hundreds of thousands of migrants in recent years, it has also modeled compassion and resilience, rooted in a tradition of caring for those who flee north. Opinions here are divided over Biden’s election-year asylum crackdown. Many are skeptical, jaded perhaps by claims that the border can be sealed and a mass movement of people stopped. “From what we see at our shelter, people are desperate,” said Rafael Garcia, pastor of Sacred Heart parish, the church adjacent to the shelter. “They’re fearful to death, and so they’re going to continue to take risks, which they are doing right now.” As migration has reached historic levels in recent years, El Paso, a [liberal corner](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/results-texas-president.html) in conservative Texas, has [intermittently](https://abcnews.go.com/US/el-paso-texas-migrant-surge-title-42-end/story?id=95663515) been a central crossing point from Mexico. Local officials say they are proud of the city’s response to what it defines as a humanitarian and public safety “[crisis](https://www.elpasotexas.gov/migrant-crisis/)”. But the sheer scale has taken a toll. Earlier this month, Oscar Leeser, the city’s Democratic mayor, traveled to the nation’s capital to stand with Biden at the White House as the president formally unveiled his controversial asylum order. “We’ve been asking for help for many years,” Leeser told journalists in [El Paso](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/el-paso), after returning from Washington. The president’s action was “a start,” he said, but Congress still needed to act. Leeser, who was [born](https://www.elpasotexas.gov/government/mayor/) in Chihuahua, Mexico, before moving to El Paso as a child, speaking no English, said the city strives to be a welcoming place for asylum seekers while remaining a safe place for residents. Having adopted a “no street release” policy, he said local officials work to connect people with shelters and transportation before they depart to other cities, often Denver, Chicago or New York. When shelters are full, the city has [opted to pay](https://elpasomatters.org/2023/09/22/migrant-arrivals-challenge-el-paso-shelters/) for hotel rooms. The city is also in the process of building an animal shelter in a vacant middle school now used as a shelter, part of the mayor’s vision to offer pet therapy as a mental health resource. “We really want to make sure people are treated with respect and dignity,” Leeser said. But the status quo is unsustainable, he said. During a peak last year, the number of arrivals rose as high as 1,700 people in a single day, leaving city resources stretched thin. The number of people crossing has plunged since then, but remains historically high. Since October, the start of the fiscal year, there have been more than 204,000 encounters in the El Paso sector, which includes west Texas and all of New Mexico, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) [data](https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/southwest-land-border-encounters-by-component), a 39% decrease compared to the same period last year. Leeser expects the asylum policy will work as a deterrent because “the consequences are greater now”. While the restrictions are in effect, people who do not establish a “[reasonable probability](https://www.dhs.gov/news/2024/06/04/fact-sheet-presidential-proclamation-suspend-and-limit-entry-and-joint-dhs-doj)” for asylum will be removed and subject to a “[five-year bar](https://www.dhs.gov/news/2024/06/04/fact-sheet-presidential-proclamation-suspend-and-limit-entry-and-joint-dhs-doj)” for re-entry, according to the Department of Homeland Security. [](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jun/23/el-paso-texas-us-mexico-border-crackdown#img-3) New arrivals outside the Sacred Heart shelter in El Paso, Texas, on 8 January 2023. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images [](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jun/23/el-paso-texas-us-mexico-border-crackdown#img-4) Outside the Sacred Heart shelter on 20 December 2022. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images It’s the mayor’s hope that the harsher penalties will encourage people to use the government’s preferred pathway, by requesting an asylum appointment through its smartphone app CBP One. Roughly [1,450 appointments](https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/national-media-release/cbp-one-appointments-increased-1450-day) are available each day via the app, but there is a [months-long backlog](https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/05/cbp-one-mobile-application-violates-the-rights-of-people-seeking-asylum-in-the-united-states/) that immigration advocates fear will worsen under the new policy, which opponents are [challenging in court](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jun/12/biden-immigration-asylum-directive-lawsuit). [According to preliminary CBP figures](https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/national-media-release/cbp-releases-may-2024-monthly-update#:~:text=On%20June%204%2C%202024%2C%20President,noncitizens%20across%20the%20Southern%20border.) released on Thursday, encounters with people at the border have fallen 25% in the two weeks since the asylum restrictions were implemented. “Every time the federal government makes a change, we see a dramatic drop in the flow,” Jorge Rodriguez, the emergency management coordinator for the city and county of El Paso, told journalists, hours after the policy took effect. But he said the situation can change abruptly, spurred by factors beyond Washington’s control – for example, the conditions in the countries people are fleeing, and the smuggling networks [that profit mightily](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/25/us/migrant-smuggling-evolution.html) from global migration. US enforcement tells only part of the story. Mexican authorities, under intensifying pressure from the US, are [aggressively cracking down](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/12/mexico-migrants-us-immigration) on people trying to reach its northern border, blocking their advance and [busing](https://apnews.com/article/mexico-immigration-border-lopez-obrador-biden-a5498f0791f5f1ef99f1dfd9accce8f4) them hundreds of miles in the opposite direction, towards its southern border with Guatemala. As the route becomes more difficult to traverse, human rights advocates say people will be forced to stay in Mexico, where they risk extortion, kidnapping and violence. Already, [shelters are beginning to fill](https://elpasomatters.org/2024/06/18/migrants-juarez-mexico-shelters-streets-biden-asylum-restrictions/) in Ciudad Juárez, the Mexican city opposite the border from El Paso, [as people hoping to claim asylum are turned back](https://www.npr.org/2024/06/09/nx-s1-4995786/how-bidens-asylum-policy-is-affecting-one-venezuelan-family). “Nothing’s going to stop the migration,” Juan Acereto Cervera, an adviser to the mayor of Ciudad Juárez, told journalists as part of the same panel in El Paso. “Nothing.” In the baking Santa Teresa desert, a few miles west of El Paso, the hulking, rust-colored border barrier snakes through sand and shrubs. A day after Biden’s asylum policy took effect, the US side was desolate, save for scattered pieces of clothing, empty water bottles and a photograph of a little girl with big brown eyes. “Valeria” was printed neatly on the back, with a note, in Spanish: “You’ll always be my queen.” For decades, the vast majority of those who crossed without authorization were Mexican men looking for work. Now people come from all over the western hemisphere. Families traveling with children make up nearly [40% of those who have crossed the southern border so far this year](https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/southwest-land-border-encounters), while tens of thousands of young people have come alone. Rather than hide, they increasingly [seek out authorities](https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc-podcast/why-is-this-happening/stakes-immigration-aaron-reichlin-melnick-podcast-transcript-rcna124713) to surrender and request asylum. On a tour with journalists, CBP officials declined to discuss the new asylum order, issued after Republicans blocked a bipartisan border security bill – at Donald Trump’s behest – that would have sent a surge of resources to the agency. The policy remains in place until the number of illegal crossings drops below 1,500 for seven consecutive days. The last time the figure fell that low [was in 2020](https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/american-immigration-council-analysis-presidents-212f-proclamation-and-interim-final-rule#:~:text=What%20the%20proclamation%20and%20regulation,it%20harder%20for%20people%20to), during the depths of the coronavirus pandemic. [](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jun/23/el-paso-texas-us-mexico-border-crackdown#img-5) People pass through razor wire while crossing the US-Mexico border on 13 March 2024 in El Paso, Texas. Photograph: John Moore/Getty Images It was the most restrictive action yet from the Democratic president, who recently invoked his own family’s journey from Ireland two centuries before to emphasize his compassion for the plight of immigrants. But the southern border has become a [defining feature](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/29/trump-biden-border-visits-analysis) of the November presidential election – and a major liability for Biden, whose “carrot and stick” approach **–** mixing policies that expand legal pathways into the US while tightening border restrictions – has left few satisfied. Voters [strongly disapprove](https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/monmouthpoll_us_061224/) of Biden’s handling of the border, polls show, while attitudes [toward undocumented immigrants](https://www.axios.com/2024/04/25/trump-biden-americans-illegal-immigration-poll) living in the US appear to be [growing more hostile](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/06/06/immigration-attitudes-and-the-2024-election/). Trump, the Republican nominee who as president enacted a policy that [separated children from their parents](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/25/trump-family-separations-children-torture-psychology) at the border, has stoked those fears, promising to carry out “the largest deportation in history” if re-elected. Imelda Maynard, an attorney with the El Paso-based [Estrella del Paso Legal Aid](https://estrelladelpaso.org/), called Biden’s action a “gut punch”. She feared the [asylum clampdown](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jun/04/biden-us-mexico-border-asylum-seekers) would make people more desperate. They may attempt to cross in more remote areas to avoid detection. Or parents may attempt to send their children alone because unaccompanied minors are one of the few groups exempted under the new restrictions. There are also questions about how evenly the policy will be enforced along the 2,000-mile border, particularly if the number of arrivals begins to rise again. Inconsistencies, certain to be amplified on social media and messaging platforms, could send the message that it’s still possible to come, Maynard said, because: “You can’t battle hope, right?” For many in El Paso, portrayals of the borderlands as wide open and consumed by chaos are worlds apart from the reality of their everyday lives. In this predominantly Hispanic community, conversations slip easily between Spanish and English, and the border is a dividing line traversed daily by students going to school​ and relatives visiting family. Its ports of entry process [tens of billions of dollars](https://www.elpasoinc.com/news/local_news/el-paso-ranks-2nd-in-southern-border-trade/article_0d777414-00b6-11ef-b3cd-d39ffaaa008b.html) in trade annually. “If one more politician says the border is broken,” said Jon Barela of the [Borderplex Alliance](https://www.borderplexalliance.org/about-us), an economic development organization in El Paso, shaking his head. “The border is not broken.” Barela blamed Washington for repeatedly failing to overhaul an immigration system nearly every elected official has declared broken, despite the country’s need for more workers. Modernizing guest worker programs and expanding pathways to citizenship for the long-term undocumented – once pillars of comprehensive immigration reform, left out of [this year’s border security deal](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/23/senate-democrats-immigration-border-bill) – would help power the US economy, he argued. His preference is a [bipartisan immigration plan](https://salazar.house.gov/media/press-releases/salazar-and-escobar-introduce-bipartisan-dignity-act) introduced by El Paso’s representative in the US House, Veronica Escobar. But Congress has shown no interest in an election-year immigration consensus. [](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jun/23/el-paso-texas-us-mexico-border-crackdown#img-6) People gather near the Sacred Heart shelter on 8 May 2023. Photograph: Patrick T Fallon/AFP/Getty Images [](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jun/23/el-paso-texas-us-mexico-border-crackdown#img-7) People wait to enter the Sacred Heart shelter on 17 December 2022. Photograph: John Moore/Getty Images As a border-state Democrat and a co-chair of Biden’s re-election campaign, Escobar has carefully navigated the [choppy politics](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jun/16/democrats-biden-asylum-immigration-order) of the president’s immigration policies. This month, she signed on to a [letter](https://ramirez.house.gov/media/press-releases/ramirez-garcia-lead-16-members-congress-opposition-uscis-proposed-rule-add) asking the administration to reconsider its asylum rule. Then, last week, the congresswoman joined the president at the White House to celebrate [a suite of new executive actions](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jun/18/us-citizenship-pathway-spouses-children-immigrants-joe-biden) aimed at opening a pathway to citizenship for hundreds of thousands of immigrants living without legal status in the US. Escobar is also sounding the alarm on [growing anti-immigrant vitriol](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/16/trump-immigrants-new-hampshire-rally). Right-wing talk of an immigrant “invasion” stir fears among residents, nearly five years after a white supremacist who railed against a “Hispanic invasion” of Texas [killed 23 people](https://apnews.com/article/el-paso-walmart-shooting-crusius-6e8b5f654d9c2b51e377c09bfdda9caf) at a Walmart in El Paso. “We have seen the way that they have targeted communities like this one, like El Paso,” Escobar said during a speech at the [Texas](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/texas) Democratic convention, held in the city earlier this month. She accused Republicans, led by Trump, who has said undocumented immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of the country, of furthering the “demonization of vulnerable migrants who are seeking a better life”. “All of that,” she said, “hangs in the balance in November.” Near the remote border community of Sunland Park, New Mexico, temperatures swelled to 107F on a recent Thursday. Agents often act as first responders for people suffering heat-related distress as they attempt to cross the border, a CBP official said. They provide water and administer medical care, the official said, adding that he anticipated rescues – and deaths – would continue to rise throughout the summer. [](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jun/23/el-paso-texas-us-mexico-border-crackdown#img-8) A man with symptoms of dehydration after crossing the border from Mexico receives medical attention in Sunland Park, New Mexico, on 19 June 2024. Photograph: José Luis González/Reuters The day before, agents had [recovered](https://www.facebook.com/SunlandParkFire/posts/pfbid031GzBU4ay6JwhedgiiZddtHT9aUDfJ36QyRURuNEhBxjs8TgbrmbPS2GFnF3NFrewl) the bodies of [two people](https://x.com/SunlandParkFire/status/1798568161752859100) found in the desert, believed to have [died](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jun/07/mexico-border-heatwave-deaths) of heat-related injuries. Since then, two more bodies were recovered in the area and two people suffering heat-related injuries were rescued, according to the Sunland Park fire department. “Last year, we had a [record \[number\] of border deaths](https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/immigration/2023/10/03/border-patrol-el-paso-sector-cbp-reports-record-migrant-death-toll-immigration/71041661007/) in our community, and with policies like these that is just going to increase,” said Aimée Santillán, a policy analyst at the [Hope Border Institute](https://www.hopeborder.org/), based in El Paso. “It’s a very human issue that unfortunately has been dehumanized,” she said. “Migrants have become something else – a problem that needs to be fixed instead of people that need to be helped.” At the Sacred Heart shelter on a recent Friday, volunteers sorted pairs of boxer briefs and other donated items. A woman from Venezuela chopped garlic in the kitchen. Preparing for the next group of arrivals was Michael DeBruhl, who now serves as the shelter’s director after a 26-year career with the border patrol. More than 50,000 people have passed through since it opened the parish gymnasium as a shelter, practically overnight, in December 2022, as winter temperatures plunged and local officials scrambled to accommodate [a sudden spike in migration](https://abcnews.go.com/US/el-paso-texas-migrant-surge-title-42-end/story?id=95663515). There are fewer people these days. The night prior, the shelter had housed 74 people, well below its capacity of 120. Many arrive here with children, mostly fleeing the crisis in Venezuela. DeBruhl, who is Mexican American, quips that he now keeps a bottle of Tabasco sauce with him to add spice to the milder Venezuelan dishes served at mealtime. In his time with the shelter, DeBruhl has tried to provide a sense of uplift. When he started, people were sleeping on cots, which couldn’t be stacked and stored, so he procured mats that could be folded and tucked away in the morning. “Even the illusion of space, I think, is better for the soul,” he said, surveying the gymnasium, where José and Diana were preparing to depart for Houston. DeBruhl said it would probably take several weeks to fully grasp the impact of Biden’s asylum order. Like others, he worries about the people toiling in Mexico – the more hostile side of the border, in his experience, by far. But so long as it was better to leave than to stay, DeBruhl was sure people would continue to try. That is his mission now: to care for those who come. “We didn’t want to leave our country,” José said. But he couldn’t afford to buy school supplies for his seven-year-old son or medication for his elderly mother. He came to the US, like so many before and after, to give his family a better life. If that had been possible in Venezuela, he would have stayed. * _This story was reported through a fellowship on_ _US immigration policy in El Paso organized by Poynter with funding from the Catena Foundation_

_You’re reading an excerpt from the WorldView newsletter._ [_Sign up to get the rest free_](https://www.washingtonpost.com/newsletters/todays-worldview/?itid=lk_inline_manual_1)_, including news from around the globe and interesting ideas and opinions to know, sent to your inbox Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays._ **It’s an image you’ve already seen:** Former president Donald Trump on a panicked outdoor stage in Pennsylvania, surrounded by Secret Service agents, blood streaming from the corner of his ear across his cheek. He seems shaken but defiant, a clenched fist in the air as he’s hurried away. Trump [survived an apparent assassination attempt Saturday](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/07/13/trump-rally-pennsylvania/?itid=lk_inline_manual_5) that saw the suspected shooter shot dead, one rally attendee killed and two others critically injured. The shooter has been identified by the FBI as Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20. At the time of writing, there was no official indication of his personal motives. His assault on Trump has shocked the world and upended an already volatile, heated U.S. election cycle. President Biden described the assassination attempt Saturday evening as “sick,” saying “there’s no place in America for this kind of violence.” He later spoke with Trump. World leaders across the political spectrum [issued shocked condemnations](https://www.politico.com/news/2024/07/13/trump-rally-shooting-international-reaction-00167993) of the attack and expressed relief that Trump was not seriously harmed. A host of Trump allies [immediately blamed](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/07/13/trump-shooting-blame-biden-democrats/?itid=lk_inline_manual_8) Democrats and anyone who suggests Trump’s ultranationalism is a danger to U.S. democracy as being somehow complicit in the attack. In that rhetorical leap, they were joined by certain leaders elsewhere who see themselves in at least partial ideological alliance with Trump: Argentine President Javier Milei used the occasion to blast the “authoritarian agenda” of the “international left.” Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, long irked by criticism from the Biden administration and human rights advocates over [his quasi-autocratic consolidation of power](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/02/06/bukele-nayib-el-salvador-president-coolest-dictator-global-international/?itid=lk_inline_manual_9) while executing [a wildly popular crackdown on crime](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/02/06/bukele-nayib-el-salvador-president-coolest-dictator-global-international/?itid=lk_inline_manual_9), simply posed a one-word question on social media: “Democracy?” **But, of the foreign leaders, the reactions of current Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico and former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro may be the most significant**. Only two months ago, Fico, a populist often likened to Trump, was [shot and almost killed by a septuagenarian “lone wolf” assailant](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/05/16/robert-fico-serious-condition-shooting-slovakia/?itid=lk_inline_manual_11) who disliked Fico’s politics. The controversial Slovak leader has emerged from his convalescence all the more animated about the perfidy of his perceived ideological opponents. And in 2018, then-Brazilian presidential candidate Bolsonaro was stabbed by another lone wolf attacker in the middle of a campaign rally. The incident drove public sympathy toward Bolsonaro, [another anti-establishment, hard line nationalist like Trump](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/30/bolsonaro-trump-brazil-election-democracy/?itid=lk_inline_manual_14), and swept him into power. By Sunday morning, Fico and Bolsonaro had publicly embraced Trump and denounced his opponents. “It’s a carbon copy of the script,” Fico [wrote](https://www.euronews.com/2024/07/14/donald-trumps-attempted-assassination-eu-and-world-leaders-react) on social media, suggesting he and the former U.S. president were victims of an environment where their enemies fan public hysteria against them. “Trump’s political opponents are trying to shut him down. When they fail, they incite the public until some poor guy takes up arms.” Bolsonaro [tweeted](https://x.com/jairbolsonaro/status/1812260550476431781) his “solidarity” with Trump, and said he would see Trump at his inauguration — a reflection of the overwhelming confidence among right-wing observers that the incident would turn into a political boon for the former president. Bolsonaro’s son, Eduardo, echoed the sentiment, responding to a tweet from Trump’s son, Eric, with the message that Trump was “already elected” and gesturing to Bolsonaro’s stabbing in 2018. “We have experience with a situation like that, we know the enemy — and you too,” Eduardo wrote. Trump’s critics point to his own record of incendiary rhetoric; they link him to a sprawling canvas of political violence that’s marred life in the United States over the past decade. Trump’s rhetoric has echoed language in far-right conspiracy theories [linked to mass shootings](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/06/29/border-open-mentality-republican-migrants-san-antonio/?itid=lk_inline_manual_19) in El Paso, a synagogue in Pennsylvania and the wider mobilization of armed far-right White supremacists. It fanned the flames of the Jan. 6, 2021 storming of the Capitol by his supporters. “Trump himself often uses inflammatory language, having taken office in \[2017\] by describing the state of the nation as ‘American carnage,’” [wrote my colleague Michael Scherer](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/07/13/trump-shooting-blame-biden-democrats/?itid=lk_inline_manual_20). “He has since called his political enemies ‘vermin,’ described some undocumented migrants as 'animals’ and warned of a ‘bloodbath’ if he fails to win in November.”

Dabb, Kory R. Kimberlee Singler was detained in west London on 30 December 2023 A US mother accused of shooting two of her children at their home in Colorado was "begged" by her third child not to kill her, a UK court has heard. Kimberlee Singler has attended the start of her extradition hearing in London after being accused of murdering her daughter Elianna, 9, and son Aden, 7, who were found dead in their bedroom in Colorado Springs on 19 December last year. The eldest child, aged 11 at the time, survived being stabbed in the neck but needed emergency surgery, Westminster Magistrates' Court heard. Through her defence barrister Ms Singler, 36, denied responsibility for the deaths and the attack on the third child. _**Warning: This report contains graphic descriptions of violence against children**_ It will not ultimately be for the London court to carry out a criminal trial. Ms Singler is wanted in Colorado to face a seven-count indictment, comprising two counts of first-degree murder, one count of attempted murder, two counts of class-two felony child abuse, one count of class-three felony child abuse, and one count of assault. The court was told in the days that followed the attack, Ms Singler "fled" the US and was arrested 11 days later in London. Ms Singler's hearing, before District Judge John Zani, is expected to last three days. The final decision on whether Ms Singler should be extradited to the US will be made by the UK home secretary. On Wednesday, prosecutor Joel Smith KC told the court Ms Singler's alleged crimes were "committed against the backdrop of acrimonious court proceedings" concerning the custody of her children with her ex-husband Kevin Wentz. Mr Smith said she shot and stabbed the first two children and attacked the third with a knife, causing “serious lacerations”. "She initially blamed an unknown male, and cast suspicion on her former partner."  Seven-year-old Aden Wentz and his nine-year-old sister Elianna (Ellie) were found dead at a home in Colorado before Christmas The court heard that on 19 December the Colorado Springs Police Department responded to a 911 call reporting a burglary at a Colorado residence at 00:29 local time (06:29 GMT). When officers arrived at the defendant's address, they found two dead children and a third with a serious injury to her neck. She was taken to hospital. Live rounds and spent cartridges were found in a closet and a "blood-stained handgun" was discovered on the floor of the bedroom, the prosecutor added. A blood-stained knife was also found in the living room of the property, Mr Smith added. The court heard that DNA tests were carried out on the knife and the gun and revealed the presence of mixed profiles matching the children and Ms Singler. Mr Smith added: "Two empty bottles of sleeping tablets were also found and there were no signs of a break-in." The court heard the third child required emergency surgery, but survived. Mr Smith said Ms Singler blamed her husband for the attack, but it was found he had been driving a "GPS-tracked truck" in Denver, giving what the prosecutor described as a "complete and verifiable alibi". In the days that followed, the third child, who was not named in court, was moved into foster care after her emergency surgery. On Christmas Day, she told her foster carer that Ms Singler had been responsible for the attack and had asked her to lie to police, Mr Smith said. The prosecutor said the girl was interviewed by police on 26 December, during which time she recounted how the attack had unfolded after the defendant guided all three children into their bedroom. "The defendant told her that God was telling her to do it, and that the children’s father would take them away," Mr Smith said. The police investigation then led to a warrant being issued by Fourth Judicial District Court in El Paso County, Colorado, for Ms Singler's arrest. Mr Smith said Ms Singler was arrested in the Chelsea area of west London on 30 December. Ms Singler's defence barrister Edward Fitzgerald told the court she "denies she is responsible for the death of her two young children and the attempted murder of her third child". "She is innocent," he said. Members of Ms Singler’s family joined via a video link, as did the Colorado State prosecutor and officials from the US Department of Justice (DoJ). The extradition hearing continues.

Just two months after a man [tried to assassinate](https://www.vox.com/politics/360489/trump-shot-thomas-matthew-crooks-secret-service-butler-rally) former President Donald Trump, the Secret Service says it stopped what appeared to be [a second assassination attempt](https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/09/15/us/harris-trump-election) against the former president. Unlike the July 13 shooting at Trump’s rally, in which a member of the crowd was killed and Trump was injured, no one was harmed this time. But the incident has raised questions about the ability of the Secret Service to protect the former president and sparked new concerns about the risk of ongoing political violence this election cycle. On Sunday, law enforcement officials say, the former president was playing golf on his course in West Palm Beach, Florida, when Secret Service agents [spotted a gun barrel in the bushes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2W1Yi_Np64U) on the perimeter of the course. Agents surrounded the former president and opened fire, prompting a man to flee the scene. The suspected gunman was 300–500 yards from the former president, according to Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw in a press conference. (While close, the suspect was not as close as Trump’s July shooter, [who was within roughly 150 yards](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/heres-what-we-know-about-thomas-matthew-crooks-suspected-trump-rally-shooter-2024-07-14/) of the president when he opened fire.) Police said they found an AK-47 style rifle with a scope, along with two backpacks and a camera, in the bushes. It is still unclear whether the suspected gunman fired any shots before the Secret Service reacted. The former president — according to Fox News anchor Sean Hannity, [who spoke to](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/15/us/politics/trump-reaction-golf-shooting.html) the president on Sunday after the attempted attack — was safe and in good spirits. A witness saw someone fleeing the vicinity in a black Nissan immediately after the incident, according to Bradshaw, and law enforcement officials announced that they apprehended a suspect, 58-year-old [Ryan Wesley Routh](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/what-we-know-about-reported-suspect-behind-apparent-trump-assassination-attempt-2024-09-16/), on Interstate 95 shortly after. Officials said that Routh was unarmed and appeared calm as he was arrested. Unlike [the man who attempted to assassinate Trump in July](https://edition.cnn.com/2024/07/15/us/thomas-crooks-trump-rally-shooting-invs/index.html), Routh has a colorful public history. Routh previously lived in North Carolina, [but had moved to Hawaii](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ryan-routh-custody-trump-golf-club-incident-rcna171225) in recent years and said he was building [affordable housing](https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/15/politics/trump-attempted-assassination-man-detained/index.html) there. He was interviewed by the New York Times in 2023 for an article [about Americans acting as freelance fighters for the war in Ukraine](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/25/world/europe/volunteers-us-ukraine-lies.html), despite little or no qualifications to do so. Routh, who had no prior military experience, spoke with a Times reporter about his plans to recruit soldiers who had fled the Taliban in Afghanistan and transport them to Ukraine to join the war efforts. “By the time I got off the phone with Mr. Routh some minutes later it was clear he was in way over his head,” the reporter, Thomas Gibbons-Neff, [wrote](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/15/us/politics/trump-routh-ukraine-interview.html). “He talked of buying off corrupt officials, forging passports and doing whatever it takes to get his Afghan cadre to Ukraine, but he had no real way to accomplish his goals.” In 2023, Routh [also spoke to Semafor](https://www.semafor.com/article/09/15/2024/alleged-trump-plotter-ryan-routh-complained-of-obstacles-to-getting-foreign-soldiers-to-ukraine) about his efforts. Routh also appears to have a criminal history. In 2002, [he was arrested in Greensboro, North Carolina, following a three-hour standoff with police](https://greensboro.com/article_3006b4f9-9370-5b08-a54e-46c87faf6cbe.html) in which he barricaded himself inside a roofing business. He was charged with possessing an illegal, fully-automatic machine gun. According to the News & Observer_,_ a newspaper based in Raleigh, North Carolina, Routh also [had other convictions](https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article292532509.html), including a hit and run and possession of stolen goods. Routh’s son spoke positively of his father [in an interview](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/15/trump-florida-shooter-suspect-son-ukraine) with the Guardian this weekend and expressed surprise at the idea he had resorted to violence. Little else is known at this time about his other potential familial relationships. Like Trump’s other would-be assassin, Thomas Matthew Crooks, Routh’s political stances appear not to fit neatly into a single political ideology — though it does seem he views Trump as a threat to American democracy. Routh [was registered](https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article292532509.html) in North Carolina as an “unaffiliated” voter and participated in this year’s Democratic primary. He had given money to Democratic causes. But on an X account that has since been deactivated, a user with Routh’s name [said that he had supported Donald Trump in 2016](https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/15/politics/trump-attempted-assassination-man-detained/index.html) but had been disappointed by his presidency. In another post from the same account, [the author tried to encourage Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy](https://www.axios.com/2024/09/16/trump-florida-assassination-attempt-suspect-ryan-routh), both Republicans, to run for president and vice president together. The same account [posted that](https://nypost.com/2024/09/15/us-news/would-be-trump-assassin-idd-as-ryan-routh-58-of-hawaii-sources/) “democracy is on the ballot” in this election, along with other, [sometimes incoherent posts](https://nypost.com/2024/09/15/us-news/would-be-trump-assassin-idd-as-ryan-routh-58-of-hawaii-sources/) about various subjects, including Ukraine and China, suggesting that the author’s politics are not easily characterized by a single worldview. As with July’s assassination attempt, online partisans on both sides are already drawing conclusions about Routh’s political leanings and its implications, with some Democrats [downplaying](https://x.com/search?q=Routh&src=typeahead_click) Routh’s support for liberal causes and Republicans [connecting Routh’s comment about democracy being on the ballot](https://www.politico.com/news/2024/09/15/trump-second-assassination-attempt-republican-response-00179261) to what Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats have said about the stakes for this election. The AK-47 Routh had on him, like the AR-15 used by Crooks, [is one of the preferred weapons of mass shooters](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/07/23/us/trump-shooting-gunman-snipers.html) in recent years. Both are assault-style weapons — a phrase that has many possible meanings but generally refers to guns that are meant for rapid-fire use with large magazines of ammunition. An AK-47 style weapon [was used at a 2019 shooting in El Paso, Texas](https://www.texastribune.org/2019/08/28/el-paso-shooting-gun-romania/), where 23 people were killed and 22 were injured. Vice President Kamala Harris, who said in a statement that she was “deeply disturbed” by the reports of a second attempted attack on Trump, has called for [banning assault weapons](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-61621470). The United States [had a federal assault weapons ban](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=220dREyLPus) in place from 1994 to 2004, and research suggests that assault weapons bans [meaningfully reduce](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13504851.2014.939367?scroll=top&needAccess=true) mass shooting deaths. The [public is divided](https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/monmouthpoll_us_042423/) over the question of whether to ban assault weapons, though, and Republicans in Congress [blocked](https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4345455-senate-republicans-block-assault-weapons-ban/) a bill to do so when it came up for a vote in 2023. Even after being targeted by a similar weapon in July, former President Trump [did not](https://www.vox.com/donald-trump/360742/someone-tried-to-assassinate-the-former-president-and-the-gop-still-wont-talk-about-guns) call for an assault weapons ban. Lawmakers are [demanding to know](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/15/us/politics/secret-service-trump-shooting.html) more about how another would-be assassin was able to get so close to the former president for a second time in a few months. At the press conference, law enforcement explained that Trump’s Secret Service detail did not have the resources to cover the entire perimeter of the golf course, but lawmakers are sure to ask for more details in the coming days. “The facts about a second incident certainly warrant very close attention and scrutiny,” Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut [told](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/15/us/politics/secret-service-trump-shooting.html) the New York Times. Though a second assassination attempt in such a short period of time seems shocking, it is in some ways not surprising. Current and former law enforcement officials I’ve spoken to in recent weeks have emphasized just how difficult the task of protecting elected officials in public has become. Following the expiration of the federal assault weapons ban, and after more than a decade of marketing of assault-style rifles, [more of these](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/interactive/2023/history-of-ar-15-marketing/) weapons are circulating in the US [than ever before](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gunmakers-made-over-1-billion-in-assault-weapon-sales-in-the-past-decade-congressional-report-finds/). The number of deadly long-range guns held by the public makes it considerably more difficult to maintain a zone of safety around politicians. The Secret Service also noted Sunday that as a former president, Trump doesn’t have access to the same level of security that the current president does, and some [former officials are now suggesting](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/15/us/politics/secret-service-trump-shooting.html) that may need to change. Guns aren’t the only problem, though. As Garen Wintemute, an expert in political violence and gun violence told me this summer, his research has revealed [a small but worrying segment of the American population](https://www.vox.com/politics/369441/political-violence-2024-election) is open to the idea that violence committed for political reasons is justifiable. At the time, Wintemute said, the conditions that made more violence likely were a closely contested race, with momentum swinging toward Democrats, and a race where political violence had already recently occurred. “I think it will happen again. Whether it will involve an elected official as a target, I can’t say,” Wintemute [told Vox](https://www.vox.com/politics/369441/political-violence-2024-election) in July. “But we’ve opened the door to political violence this election season, and there are still some leaders using rhetoric that enables violence. And we will all pay a price for that, I suspect.” You’ve read 1 article in the last month Here at Vox, we believe in helping everyone understand our complicated world, so that we can all help to shape it. Our mission is to create clear, accessible journalism to empower understanding and action. If you share our vision, please consider supporting our work by becoming a _Vox Member_. Your support ensures Vox a stable, independent source of funding to underpin our journalism. If you are not ready to become a Member, even small contributions are meaningful in supporting a sustainable model for journalism. Thank you for being part of our community.  Swati Sharma Vox Editor-in-Chief [Join for $10/month](https://vox.memberful.com/checkout?plan=99544&itm_campaign=swati-launch-banner&itm_medium=site&itm_source=footer) We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay.

Yoonie Yang was sitting in her Spanish two honors class in southern Florida when she first learned of a shooting at nearby Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school. She watched in horror as fellow students checked in on their friends to see if they were among the 17 victims. “I don’t think my peers know of an America or a world where there isn’t gun violence,” said Yang, now a senior at the University of Pennsylvania and a campus organizer for the gun safety group Students Demand Action. “This is an issue that we’re willing to take a stand on, and it’s an issue that has affected our lives and affected our childhoods into our adulthoods.” [](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2024/oct/24/trump-gun-safety-stakes#img-1) A girl attends the End of School Year Peace March and Rally in Chicago in June 2018. Photograph: Guardian Design/AFP/Getty Images Yang and fellow gun safety advocates are acutely aware of the stakes of this year’s elections, as [Donald Trump](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/donaldtrump) looks to return to the White House. The US has some of the highest rates of gun violence in the world when compared to other developed countries. Joe Biden’s presidency oversaw the passage of the first major federal gun safety law in nearly 30 years and a boost for violence interruption community programs led by the people in the communities most affected by gun violence. Now, advocates fear that those broadly popular policies could be easily reversed if Trump and congressional Republicans win in November, eroding incremental progress made on addressing the two most common types of gun deaths – suicide and homicide. “We are at a pivotal moment because we finally broke the back of the gun lobby in 2022,” said Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat of Connecticut, about the passage of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA). “We passed a significant piece of legislation. We are doing way more background checks. So we are at a moment where we have to convince people, based upon our experience in the last two years, that passing laws saves lives.” ‘We did nothing’ ---------------- When he addressed the National Rifle Association’s Great American Outdoor in February, Trump applauded his administration’s inaction on gun violence and described himself as “the best friend gun owners have ever had in the White House”. “During my four years, nothing happened,” Trump said. “And there was great pressure on me having to do with guns. We did nothing. We didn’t yield.” During his presidential tenure, Trump did ban bump stocks, the gun accessory used in the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting. And in 2019, following mass shootings in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas, Trump [signaled](https://www.texastribune.org/2019/08/07/trump-considers-red-flag-laws-texas-lawmakers-have-blocked/) support for “[red flag laws](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/23/red-flag-laws-gun-control)”, which prevent those deemed to be a danger to themselves or others from accessing guns, but he never moved on legislation. If Trump wins election again, advocates expect him to immediately shutter the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, which Harris oversees, and nominate a gun industry-friendly leader as director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. He could also disrupt implementation of the BSCA and wind back some of the Biden administration’s efforts to broaden background checks. The BSCA expanded background checks for the youngest gun buyers, incentivized states to pass red-flag laws and provided significant funding for community violence intervention programs. If Republicans take full control of Congress, they could repeal the law entirely. “Not only is this out of touch and extreme, it’s not aligned with where the American people are on this,” said Angela Ferrell-Zabala, executive director of Moms Demand Action. According to a Gallup [poll](https://news.gallup.com/poll/513623/majority-continues-favor-stricter-gun-laws.aspx) conducted last year, 56% of Americans believe gun laws should be made stricter while 31% believe they should be kept the same. Only 12% of Americans favor less strict gun regulations. [](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2024/oct/24/trump-gun-safety-stakes#img-2) Donald Trump speaks at the NRA annual meeting in Dallas, Texas, on 18 May 2024. Composite: Getty Images/Guardian Design Despite that opposition, Republican-led states have moved to further loosen gun laws in recent years. Since 2015, 25 states have [enacted](https://giffords.org/lawcenter/gun-laws/policy-areas/guns-in-public/concealed-carry/) laws allowing residents to carry concealed weapons without a permit, despite [research](https://publichealth.jhu.edu/center-for-gun-violence-solutions/solutions/regulation-of-public-carry-of-firearms) suggesting such laws can increase rates of gun violence. On the other hand, states that have attempted to heighten gun regulations have encountered resistance from the conservative-leaning supreme court. In 2022, six of the court’s justices, including three nominated by Trump, [ruled](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/23/us-supreme-court-new-york-law-gun-control) to overturn a New York law that placed strict parameters on who could carry a handgun in public. Gun safety advocates worry that Trump would use a second term to nominate more judges who could strike down additional regulations on firearms. “Having a Trump administration means that we can look forward to having to fight like hell to not lose the incredible progress that we’ve made on just common basic gun safety measures across this country that are, frankly, saving lives every single day,” said Ferrell-Zabala. On the campaign trail, Trump and Vance have either downplayed or normalized gun violence, despite two assassination attempts against the former president involving firearms. After a school shooting in Iowa earlier this year, Trump [told](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/06/donald-trump-iowa-school-shooting) mourning community members: “It’s just horrible – so surprising to see it here. But we have to get over it. We have to move forward.” After [framing](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/sep/06/georgia-school-shooting-trump-vance-harris) a recent school shooting in Georgia as a “fact of life”, Vance suggested during the vice-presidential [debate](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/01/vice-presidential-debate-walz-vance) that the answer to such violence was stronger doors and windows as well as more security. “We have to make the doors lock better,” Vance said in the debate. “We have to make the doors stronger. We’ve got to make the windows stronger, and of course, we’ve got to increase school resource officers.” Those proposed solutions are wholly inadequate to gun safety advocates, who note that the presence of school resource officers did not prevent the 2022 shooting at Robb elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, or the 2018 attack on Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in Parkland, Florida. “Our first responders certainly have a role to play in society, but they needn’t play a role in every part of society,” said Representative Ayanna Pressley, a Democrat of Massachusetts. “And all of the data supports that what makes students safer, what makes educators safer is an investment in social and emotional wellness supports and trauma-informed learning communities.” [](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2024/oct/24/trump-gun-safety-stakes#img-3) An activist shouts into a megaphone during a March for Our Lives rally in Bloomington, Indiana, in June 2022. Photograph: LightRocket/Getty Images/Guardian Design Asked about Vance’s framing of school shootings as a “fact of life”, Pressley described the comment as “shameful”. “We should never be normalizing all of the violence that is wrought by guns in this society,” Pressley said. “We should be outraged that it’s happening, and that is not anything that I am going to accept or tolerate.” A project left unfinished ------------------------- The first years of the Biden-Harris administration coincided with an [increase in homicides](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/27/us-murder-rate-increase-2020) not seen in more than six decades. This jump, which hit underserved Black and Latino communities hardest, combined with the protesters that followed the killings of Black Americans like George Floyd and Breonna Taylor pushed the field of community-based violence intervention (CVI) into the spotlight. But the ties that have been forged between the White House and leading veteran Black and Latino violence prevention workers could now be jeopardized if Trump wins. Cities like Boston, Newark and Oakland have had programs for the small population of people most likely to be shot or shoot someone else since the late 20th century. By the mid-2010s, hundreds of groups were working in hospitals and subsidized housing complexes across the US to intervene in conflicts and connect people with the services they need to heal physically and mentally from gun violence. “The field is growing – not only in pockets of the country but all over the country, said Anthony Smith, executive director of Cities United, a non-profit that helps city officials, community groups and youth build up their violence prevention infrastructures. “You have more energy and synergy around it, and people trying to understand and be a part of it.” As the movement to defund police departments reached the national level and people sought out alternatives to prevent violence and shrink the police’s footprints in Black and Latino communities, the White House increasingly tapped people like Smith for their expertise. “Folks were looking for alternatives to public safety and didn’t know there were already a number of people doing this work,” Smith continued. “I think when people found out \[CVI\] got a different look than it had in the past.” [](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2024/oct/24/trump-gun-safety-stakes#img-4) A memorial at Robb elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, in November 2022. Photograph: The Guardian/Guardian Design Addressing that type of violence was also a central focus of the BSCA, and in 2023, [Biden and Harris announced](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/22/biden-harris-federal-gun-prevention-office) a first-of-its-kind federal Office of Gun Violence Prevention tasked with implementing the policies laid out in BSCA. The office has aimed to expand the use of red flag laws and distribute $5bn made available through the BSCA to on-the-ground violence prevention and violence response programs. “Lives will be saved,” Biden said when he signed the bill. “I know there’s much more work to do, and I’m never going to give up. But this is a monumental day.” Two years later, early evidence has lent credibility to Biden’s prediction. According to [data](https://www.fbi.gov/news/press-releases/fbi-releases-2023-crime-in-the-nation-statistics) compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, violent crime decreased by 3% between 2022 and 2023, while murder and non-negligent manslaughter were down by 11.6% in 2023 compared to a year earlier. Data from the [Gun Violence Archive](https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/) shows that, by the start of October, mass shootings had decreased by 22% compared to the [same point](https://x.com/GunDeaths/status/1708858377940713749) in 2023. Biden has used the authority of the BSCA to push for a drastic increase in the number of gun sellers required to perform background checks, although that policy has [faced](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-judge-blocks-biden-backed-rule-expanding-gun-background-checks-2024-05-20/) legal challenges. “We’ve never seen the kind of two-year drop \[in violence\] that we’re seeing right now,” Murphy said. “Thousands of people are alive that wouldn’t have been alive had we not passed that bill.” Funding for this work will be available through the US Department of Justice until 2027, but the continuation of other Biden-era gun policies will depend on the outcome of the election. [](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2024/oct/24/trump-gun-safety-stakes#img-5) Joe Biden sigs an executive order during an address on gun violence at the White House on 26 September 2024. Composite: Getty Images/Guardian Design Harris has indicated she wants to build upon the work that Biden has done to tackle gun violence, as she has [called](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/13/kamala-harris-assault-weapons-ban-tax-relief-pennsylvania) for the reinstatement of a federal assault weapons ban and universal background checks on gun purchases. But Harris has also made a point to emphasize that she and her running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz, are both gun owners. She has fiercely rejected Trump’s claims about Democrats angling to take all of Americans’ guns away, and she raised eyebrows when she [said](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn4yxe2xxzdo) anyone caught breaking into her home is “getting shot”. Gun safety advocates argue that Harris’ position underscores how responsible gun ownership need not clash with support for laws like universal background checks, a stance supported by polling. According to a [Fox News poll](https://www.foxnews.com/official-polls/fox-news-poll-voters-favor-gun-limits-arming-citizens-reduce-gun-violence) conducted last year, 87% of Americans, including 83% of those in gun-owning households, back requiring criminal background checks on all firearm purchases. “It is not the case that there is some sort of bifurcation where gun owners are in a different place on these issues than the rest of the electorate,” said Emma Brown, executive director of the gun safety group Giffords. “And I think that that is why you are seeing the vice-president talk about the importance of being a gun owner and that there is no conflict there.” She added: “Ultimately, we have [Kamala Harris](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/kamala-harris) on one side, who’s being very clear that we do not have to live in a country where we are under constant threat of gun violence. And on the other hand, you have Donald Trump promising to be the most loyal friend to the NRA. So I actually think it is a contrast that is extremely clear.” It’s unclear how much Trump knows about violence prevention programs, and Smith admits that the violence prevention field is still nascent in many ways. Efforts at the local, state and federal level can also easily be interrupted by a change in political leadership. “We should be prepared as a field no matter who’s the White House,” Smith said. “We have to be able to navigate the political shift, and I don’t think we have prepared ourselves enough, even on the local level.” A moment for change ------------------- With days left until election day, members of the anti gun violence movement, particularly its youngest members, are making it clear that they will not accept inaction on this issue. “It’s really important to elect folks across all levels of government, including the presidential ticket, that care about gun safety and want to act on it,” said Zeenat Yahya, director of policy for the youth-led organization March for Our Lives. “We’re living in a world where young people are fearing whether they’re even going to be able to grow up.” [](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2024/oct/24/trump-gun-safety-stakes#img-6) People attend a memorial service on t he fifth anniversary of the Parkland school shooting on 14 February 2023. Composite: Saul Martinez/Getty Images/Guardian Design A [study](https://circle.tufts.edu/2024-election-youth-poll#diverse-issue-priorities,-like-climate,-shape-youth-votes-and-action) conducted by Tufts University found that gun violence is the third most important issue for young voters, only after the cost of living and jobs. Since its founding in 2018, March for Our Lives has mobilized young Americans around the issue of gun violence, contacting millions of first-time voters in its organizing efforts. In July, the group endorsed Harris in its first ever political endorsement. “For young voters in particular, it’s not remiss that our lives and safetyhood are on the line,” Yahya said. “Young people should be given the right to be able to live freely and safely.” Witnessing the devastation of the Parkland shooting led Yang, in Florida, to help start the first chapter of Students Demand Action in Tennessee, after her family moved to the state. Now, as a campus organizer for the organization, she recently celebrated the opening of the new Everytown for Gun Safety field office in downtown Philadelphia, one of three such offices that the group has opened in battleground states. This election marks the first time that Everytown has invested in physical field offices. “What helps keep me motivated is that we are in such a place to make change,” Yang said. “If we’re not out talking to people, then actually nothing will change.”

Even before [two people](https://www.vox.com/politics/360489/trump-shot-thomas-matthew-crooks-secret-service-butler-rally) attempted to [assassinate former President Donald Trump](https://www.vox.com/politics/371981/trump-shooting-ryan-wesley-routh-golf-club), national security experts and law enforcement were warning that the United States [needed a plan](https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/4836866-a-plan-to-address-political-violence-before-election-day/) to contend with the possibility of political violence on Election Day. Now, in the final weeks of the campaign, researchers have just published [new findings](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s40621-024-00540-2) about the social lives of people who are likely to endorse using political violence, and be willing to use it themselves. The results, based on a nationally representative survey of more than 8,000 Americans, may seem counterintuitive. Basically, people open to the idea that political violence is justified tend to exist at opposite ends of the social spectrum. Those who report having no strong personal or work connections were 2.4 times more likely to say political violence is justifiable than people who said they have 1–4 close relationships. That’s not necessarily surprising, given the recent history of [mass shooters](https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/isla-vista-shooters-childhood-friend-the-guy-i-knew-wouldnt-say-a-word/) and [politically motivated assailants](https://www.wsj.com/us-news/thomas-matthew-crooks-trump-shooter-78b13a35) who’ve been [described by their broader networks as loners](https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/08/el-paso-shooting-when-loneliness-leads-mass-murder/595498/). What’s weird, though, is that people with lots of close connections were _also_ a little more likely to endorse political violence. People who said they had 50 or more strong relationships were 1.2 times more likely to endorse political violence. And here’s where it gets a little concerning: The people with no social connections weren’t on average any more likely to say they would be willing to personally commit political violence, even if they believed it was justified. But the people with lots of close relationships? They were 1.5 times more likely than the others to say they’d be willing to be violent for a political cause themselves. What’s going on with those super socially connected people? Julia Schleimer, the researcher who led the study, told Vox over email that, compared to the people with just a few close connections, the 50+ cohort tended to be white, higher in income, slightly more educated, and older. But that’s also true of the demographic in the middle (which reported 10–49 social connections) and they weren’t especially open to the idea of political violence. In other words, there were no demographic factors about the group that jumped out to the researchers. “One limitation of this study is that we don’t have details on the nature or characteristics of people’s social networks, which likely matters a great deal and is an area for future study,” Schleimer said. But [prior](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/pops.12239?casa_token=wifUF0BmKswAAAAA%3AcVa7JZnQxc1mxqRYcIvmfIqbckVthFTxEDur_lY-HyoyEPIiBQEHEwgWQbF3OkDQqDmCrqdOQm6hljO-) [studies](https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RBA1071-1.html) “give us reason to expect that people with very large social networks may be at greater risk for political violence, if those networks are characterized by antisocial norms, outgroup contempt, and extreme views.” That’s particularly true, she said, when the social networks are homogenous. Sometimes those groups form in person, but increasingly, they also develop online, like the Proud Boys and other far-right groups [who organized in the days after Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss](https://apnews.com/article/capitol-siege-proud-boys-donald-trump-congress-government-and-politics-a8baa24af07b20ab792f4ef6f4481fac) and [stormed the Capitol on January 6](https://apnews.com/article/enrique-tarrio-capitol-riot-seditious-conspiracy-sentencing-da60222b3e1e54902db2bbbb219dc3fb). This research, done by University of California Davis’s [Violence Prevention Research Program](https://health.ucdavis.edu/vprp/) (VPRP) builds on data [published earlier this year](https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/6crkf) about Americans’ beliefs in political violence. The good news from the earlier work is that by and large, a vast majority of Americans are opposed to political violence under any circumstances. The more worrying news? A small proportion of Americans are open to the idea that political violence is sometimes justified. “I personally think that large-scale political violence is really, really unlikely. I feel more sanguine about that prediction, given our 2024 data,” Dr. Garen Wintemute, director of the program, [told Vox](https://www.vox.com/politics/369441/political-violence-2024-election) this summer. “But sporadic outbreaks, particularly if the battleground states remain really close — is it possible? Sure. Might there be attempts to intimidate election officials? Absolutely.” The Violence Prevention Research Program applies a public health approach to issues like gun violence and political violence — meaning they look for interventions that can try to discourage them from happening. The new findings, Schleimer said, suggest that it’s important to develop approaches that target both those who are very lonely and those who are deeply connected, in, for example, extremist ideological groups. For the lonely, social skills training, community centers, cultural activities and more open and accessible cities can all be helpful. And both groups benefit from anti-violence messages from influential [public figures](https://muse.jhu.edu/article/937732) and on [social media](https://www.hfg.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/We-Want-You-To-Be-A-Proud-Boy.pdf). For the socially connected people, having a trusted figure who can support them as they begin opening up to different perspectives and challenging the beliefs of their ideology can be especially helpful. The ideas sound really simple, but the researchers’ previous work suggests that getting someone to reject political violence is perhaps easier than you might think. “For the would-be combatants, a big number would switch if their family asked them not to, or friends, or even some media sources,” Wintemute told Vox. “We can create a climate of nonacceptance for political violence. And in doing that, we can expect that it will work.” Their findings are encouraging, in that respect. But reaching every person who might be open to political violence, in a highly divided country, with this many guns? That’s the tricky part. You’ve read 1 article in the last month Here at Vox, we believe in helping everyone understand our complicated world, so that we can all help to shape it. Our mission is to create clear, accessible journalism to empower understanding and action. If you share our vision, please consider supporting our work by becoming a _Vox Member_. Your support ensures Vox a stable, independent source of funding to underpin our journalism. If you are not ready to become a Member, even small contributions are meaningful in supporting a sustainable model for journalism. Thank you for being part of our community.  Swati Sharma Vox Editor-in-Chief See More:

Two days shy of the second anniversary of a hate-fueled mass shooting at a queer nightclub in [Colorado](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/colorado) Springs, victims and mothers of those killed have filed lawsuits against the club for lax security and against the sheriff’s office for failing to trigger the state’s red flag law to disarm the shooter and ensure they could not purchase any more weapons. “Club Q advertised itself as a ‘safe place’ for LGBTQIA+ individuals. But that was a facade,” read the two complaints, which contain allegations of negligence. The suits were filed on Sunday and allege that the 19 November 2022 murders of five people could have been prevented if the El Paso county sheriff’s office used the state’s red-flag law after clear warning signs that the gunman intended to commit violence. A central focus of both lawsuits was the El Paso county commissioners’ and the then sheriff’s refusal to enforce Colorado’s red-flag law, passed in 2019, which allows officers to temporarily take someone’s firearm if they are deemed a threat to themselves or others. The same year the law was passed, El Paso county became one of the first in the state to declare itself a “second amendment sanctuary” in protest against the policy. The county passed a [Second Amendment Preservation Resolution](https://admin.elpasoco.com/commissioners-approve-pro-second-amendment-resolution/) with the county board of commissioners, arguing that the red-flag bill did not address mental health issues and imposed on people’s gun rights. This designation has no real legal teeth and it is unclear whether the designation stopped the sheriff from using the state’s red flag law. The shooter hinted at plans to carry out violent attacks at least a year before the Club Q shooting. In 2021, the shooter was arrested for allegedly kidnapping and threatening to kill their grandparents, reportedly saying he would become the “next mass killer” and then proceeding to collect ammunition, bomb-making materials, firearms and body armor, according to court documents. Their grandparents told authorities they were warned not to stand in the way of the plan. Authorities did not attempt to remove the shooter’s weapons after the 2021 incident, the lawsuits allege, saying: “This deliberate inaction allowed the shooter continued access to firearms, directly enabling the attack on Club Q.” Charges against Anderson Aldrich, the shooter, who is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns, were thrown out in July 2022 after their mother and grandparents refused to cooperate with prosecutors, evading efforts to serve them with subpoenas to testify, according to court documents unsealed after the shooting. Other relatives told a judge they feared the shooter would hurt their grandparents if released, painting a picture of an isolated, violent person who did not have a job and was given $30,000 that was spent largely on the purchase of 3D printers to make guns, the records showed. The plaintiffs in the two lawsuits include survivor Barrett Hudson, who still has three bullets in his body from that night, and other victims and relatives. They are scheduled to speak about the legal action at a news conference Tuesday – which is the second anniversary of the shooting. Families and victims also accuse the nightclub’s owners in the lawsuit of winnowing Club Q’s security detail from five or more people to just one in the years leading up to the shooting, prioritizing profits over the safety. A spokesperson for El Paso county told the Guardian the office does not comment on pending litigation. Those killed in the shooting were Raymond Green Vance, Kelly Loving, Daniel Aston, Derrick Rump and Ashley Paugh. The shooter, now 24, pleaded guilty to five counts of murder and 46 counts of attempted murder and was sentenced to a life in prison in 2023 in state court. A year later, Aldrich pleaded guilty in a federal court to hate crimes and was sentenced to an additional 55 life terms in prison.