Two Texas Males Are Accused of Killing a Migrant. Their Governor Blames Joe Biden. – Mom Jones – Mom Jones

Lev Radin/Pacific Press through ZUMA

Earlier this week, two West Texas males—one in all whom was a former warden of a migrant detention middle—had been arrested and charged with manslaughter within the loss of life of a Mexican nationwide who had not too long ago crossed over the border. An affidavit filed by a Texas Ranger alleged that Michael Sheppard, the now-former warden, and his brother Mark, got here throughout a bunch of 13 Mexican migrants consuming from a reservoir on Tuesday, whereas driving their truck by means of a sparsely inhabited space south of the city of Sierra Blanca. When the Sheppards noticed the group, the affidavit alleged, “The motive force leaned on the hood of the car and fired two pictures from a firearm on the group,” after which “re-entered the car and fled the scene.” 

Two folks had been shot—one man died on the scene, and a lady was transported to a hospital in El Paso with a abdomen wound. Based on the affidavit, members of the group informed federal brokers who responded to the capturing that “they overheard one of many males shout one thing in Spanish to the impact of, ‘Come out you sons of bitches, little asses!’ then revved the engine of the truck.” That was when the capturing began.

The 2 brothers informed investigators that that they had been within the space, and so they had fired pictures, however maintained that they’d shot at animals—the story modified from grouse, to geese, to javelinas—and that they didn’t imagine it was on the identical location because the capturing. Curiously, they uncared for to verify to see whether or not they had truly shot something, and as a substitute stop their searching expedition to attend a county water board assembly.

However based on Marfa Public Radio, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has discovered his personal offender for the capturing of two migrants: President Joe Biden. Per MPR:

In a press release, a spokesperson for Gov. Greg Abbott’s workplace referred to as the capturing a “horrible tragedy” and stated “violence of any variety is not going to be tolerated in Texas,” but in addition tied the capturing to the president’s border insurance policies.

“The Texas Division of Public Security instantly deployed troopers to guide the manhunt and help the FBI, Homeland Safety Investigations, and native regulation enforcement in bringing these criminals to justice,” Abbott spokesperson Renae Eze stated. 

Eze additionally described the capturing as “simply one other instance of how President Biden’s open border insurance policies proceed endangering lives.” 

“It’s time for President Biden to do his job and cease this humanitarian disaster by securing our southern border,” she stated.

Blaming the president of the USA as a result of two brothers allegedly opened fireplace on migrants within the Chihuahuan Desert is a grim and cynical selection from a Republican governor with presidential aspirations. It is usually, in a way, blaming the victims of the capturing for getting shot; what Abbott is basically saying is that this by no means would have occurred in the event that they merely hadn’t been there. However what “humanitarian disaster” are we speaking about on this particular case—the continued Second Modification? In actuality, migrants face the alternative drawback from the one Abbott suggests; many years of more and more militant closed-border insurance policies, from troop deployments to wall building, have compelled folks to take ever extra harmful and riskier routes into the USA at a well-documented human price.

However it is a panorama with a deep historical past, and there are echoes of the close to and distant previous in all of this. About an hour down the street from Sierra Blanca there’s a historic marker for Porvenir, the Texas village the place Texas Rangers executed 15 males and boys in 1918 amid a panic over border-crossing “bandits.” Head west and in an hour you’ll attain El Paso, the place a person who believed Republican rhetoric of a Mexican invasion massacred 23 folks at a Walmart in 2019. 

After that final capturing, Abbott said that “errors had been made” within the language he’d utilized in a fundraising letter, through which he referred to as on Texans to “DEFEND” the border in opposition to Democrats’ efforts to “remodel Texas—and our complete nation—by means of unlawful immigration.” He appeared chastened, for a second. However that second has clearly handed.