Thread by @Refusing2Forget

Texas’ #HB7, passed by the House and now pending before the Senate, proposes to create a “Texas Border Force” under the Texas Rangers. A thread about Ranger history and why this bill should worry us all. #txlege /1

The provision creating the Border Force is a change from the original bill, which allowed for the deputization of any “law-abiding” citizen, who would be granted criminal and civil immunity for actions against those thought to be migrants. /2 hrw.org/news/2023/04/1…

The current bill still leaves open the possibility of widespread Ranger recruitment of “additional officers and staff,” which sounds like a return to the practice of “Special Rangers” that was spectacularly abused in the 1910s. /3

The revised bill might not be better than the original. The Rangers have a terrible history along the border, which they do not seem to have honestly faced, and the lines between vigilante violence and policing have often blurred. /4

https://twitter.com/Refusing2Forget/status/1624415648716623873?s=20

Throughout their history, the Rangers operated along the border with minimal restrictions or obedience to the law. In the 1910s, they were responsible for mass executions, ethnic cleansing, and voting suppression of Mexican Americans. /5 refusingtoforget.org

A perceived threat of violence from Mexico (which in some cases was a real threat) became the basis for demonizing all of Mexican descent and justifying state and vigilante violence, much as political rhetoric today frames migration as “invasion.” /6 riograndeguardian.com/state-historic…

Most notable is the Porvenir Massacre, in which the Rangers murdered all the men and boys over age 15 of a small village in west Texas. /7

https://twitter.com/Refusing2Forget/status/1619345581725593601?s=20

Mexican-American and other leaders criticized the Rangers for these actions. Proposed changes included subordinating them to local officials, rendering them liable for civil suits for abuse of their authority, and ending the “Special Rangers." /8

https://twitter.com/Refusing2Forget/status/1614632334325694464?s=20

Local elected officials and law enforcement, more deeply rooted in border communities and accountable to them, objected to wanton Ranger police violence and in some cases stopped it. /9 refusingtoforget.org/ranger-violenc…

The Rangers became a more ordinary police force after the @TxDPS was created in 1935, in the sense that they were less focused on the border and trained and recruited in the same way that other police forces did. /10 tshaonline.org/handbook/entri…

Yet their subsequent conduct toward border communities still included political suppression and sadistic violence, in one Supreme Court case found to be unconstitutional./11

https://twitter.com/Refusing2Forget/status/1659925690962026496?s=20

The Rangers of today are not the same as those of the past. For one thing, they have a much greater portion of Hispanic officers. Yet their modern history is hardly unvexed. Here is @dps head Homer Garrison in blackface ridiculing the @NAACP in 1962. /12 texasarchive.org/2009_00902

Rangers used extraordinary and illegal violence against Mexican American civil rights protests and electoral mobilizations in the 1960s and 1970s. See, for example, Crystal City in 1963. /13

https://twitter.com/Refusing2Forget/status/1642143914785230849?s=20

There are more recent cases from the 1990s and early 2000s of soliciting false testimony and knowingly pushing for false convictions. /14 texasmonthly.com/news-politics/…

It would be nice to think that the Rangers have learned from these episodes. But the evidence is scant. @TxDPS did not acknowledge the anniversary of Porvenir and the @txrangermuseum presents the commander’s story as credible. /15

https://twitter.com/Refusing2Forget/status/1619345634397667329?s=20

In internal correspondence generated by an open records act request, former Ranger chief Chance Collins treats the history of such episodes as Porvenir and custodial deaths as public relations problems, not events to learn from. /16

Moreover, the statements of @GregAbbott_TX take us back to the violence of the 1910s. Abbott committed himself to pardoning Daniel Perry, who was convicted of killing a BLM protestor, before he had any chance to see the basis of the jury’s decision. /17 texastribune.org/2023/04/08/gre…

So does the idea of removing this Ranger border force from the authority of law enforcement officers elected by border communities and thus at least potentially accountable to them. /18

There is abundant evidence that refugees today are less violent and less armed than US citizens. Yet the escalating rhetoric of "invasion" presents them as a hostile army, presumably to be met with violence. /19
elpasotimes.com/story/news/202…

The push for an advance exemption of militia members, and now law enforcement officers, from sanction for any illegal actions is a particularly chilling reminder of the 1910s, when the TX gov volunteered to preemptively pardon officers "cleaning up" the border. /20

We should all be worried about where this could lead. "Once it gets going," warned a federal official of fear and violence along the border before the worse of the 1910s carnage, it "will be a long time before it stops." /21

There is no “invasion” of the United States, and no paramilitary or law enforcement response can address whatever problems are created by people coming here for safety, freedom, and opportunity. /22

this thread is written by @BenjaminHJohns1 and @GonzalesT956 in cooperation with @blibal of @hrw.  and @RobertoAleLopez of @TXCivilRights. @NAACP @LULAC @eji_org. /23