As El Paso Families Address Shooter in Court, Mario Carrillo Op-Ed Speaks to the Dangers of Dehumanizing, Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric

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Washington, DC — Nearly six years after the mass shooting at an El Paso Walmart, the gunman has pleaded guilty to state murder charges and is sentenced to life in prison without parole. In the courtroom, the judge and families of the victims and survivors have been delivering powerful statements directly to the shooter about grief, resilience, and forgiveness. State District Judge Sam Medrano addressed the shooter, rejecting the hate that motivated the massacre and honoring the community’s strength:

“You came to inflict terror, to take innocent lives and to shatter a community that had done nothing but stand for kindness, unity, and love. You slaughtered fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters,” Medrano said.

“Now as you begin the rest of your life locked away, remember this: your mission failed. You did not divide this city, you strengthened it. You did not silence its voice, you made it louder. You did not instill fear, you inspired unity. El Paso rose, stronger and braver.”

The shooter’s sentencing and court proceedings come after last week’s op-ed for El Paso Matters by Mario Carrillo, El Paso resident and Campaigns Director for America’s Voice. Carrillo reflects on the revelation that the shooter believed he was carrying out Donald Trump’s agenda to stop a so-called “invasion” of Texas, a belief reinforced by the shooter’s defense attorney during the proceedings. Carrillo explains how the same dehumanizing “invasion” language continues to underpin much of Trump’s anti-immigrant and mass deportation agenda today. Also last week, reporting from The Washington Post discredited Trump’s repeated claims of an “invasion” at the southern border, revealing that President Trump’s own National Intelligence Council, “drawing on the acumen of the United States’ 18 intelligence agencies, determined in a secret assessment early this month that the Venezuelan government is not directing an ‘invasion’ of the United States.”

Below, read key excerpts from Mario Carrillo’s op-ed in El Paso Matters: “El Paso’s Mass Shooting is Proof of the Impact of Words. Trump and Republicans Don’t Care”

“In politics, words are not just words — they are tools, weapons, and blueprints. When President Trump and other elected leaders refer to immigration at the southern border as an ‘invasion,’ they are not merely using metaphor, but creating an ideological battleground in which violence becomes not only justifiable to some, but necessary.

“Now, years later, the El Paso gunman’s defense attorney has explicitly stated that his client believed he was ‘doing Trump’s work’ by stopping the so-called ‘Hispanic invasion,’ and points to that exact rally in Florida as his breaking point and when he decided to purchase his firearms.

“This is not a fringe interpretation of Trump’s language — it is a logical endpoint. When a political leader repeatedly uses dehumanized and militarized language like ‘invasion’ or ‘infestation,’ going as far as saying that immigrants are ‘poisoning the blood’ of America… it encourages people to believe they are under siege and must respond with force.

“We’re fewer than 100 days into his second administration, and his campaign promises of mass deportations are becoming a reality… it’s become a real threat to due process and the rule of law.

“Most of the migrants who have been sent to El Salvador without due process have been summarily deported using an archaic wartime act that was last used primarily on Americans of Japanese descent who were sent to U.S. internment camps during World War II.

“Clearly, the nearly six years since the violence in El Paso have not made Republicans, and especially those in Trump’s orbit, rethink how they talk about immigrants, and the dehumanization is simply a tactic to make their cruelty seem more palatable.”