Activists begin national convoy to protest unlawful immigration at Texas border in Eagle Pass

A group called Take Our Border Back on Monday launched a cross-country convoy starting in Virginia and scheduled to end Saturday with separate rallies in Eagle Pass, along the Texas-Mexico border, and in communities in Arizona and California that are considered hot spots for unlawful immigration.

"The time is now for WE THE PEOPLE to PEACEFULLY assemble in honor of our U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights," the organization said in a statement on its website, which calls for military veterans, active and retired law enforcement officers, ranchers, truckers, bikers, and others to join the convoy at various points along the route.

The starting point is Virginia Beach, Va., and the route runs south to Jacksonville, Fla., before bending west along the Gulf of Mexico. In Texas, the convoy will pass through Houston, Austin, Dripping Springs and San Antonio before heading to Eagle Pass. Some participants are expected to split off before reaching Eagle Pass and continue on to Yuma, Ariz., and a third group will go to San Ysidro, Calif.

The announcement of the convoy, which has been spread on alt-right platforms, such as Alex Jones' InfoWars, comes amid heightened tensions and inflammatory rhetoric over unauthorized immigration and its effect on Texas border communities. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott late last week said Democratic President Joe Biden "has violated his oath to faithfully execute immigration laws" as he again asserted the right of states to defend themselves in the face of "invasion," which Abbott has declared the immigration crisis along the Texas-Mexico border to be.

More: Abbott vows to keep border security fight after Supreme Court rules feds' can cut razor wire

Within a day, 25 of Abbott's fellow Republican governors jointly issued a statement praising Texas for "stepping up to protect American citizens from historic levels of illegal immigrants." Abbott has spearheaded an $11 billion border enforcement effort called Operation Lone Star that has sent thousands of National Guard soldiers and Texas Department of Public Safety troopers to cities across South Texas and has included setting up razor wire along the state's shores of the Rio Grande, placing large water buoys in the Rio Grande and building segments of a state border wall.

The majority conservative U.S. Supreme Court last week struck a blow to Abbott's border policies and ruled that federal agents may remove the Texas-installed razor wire after the federal government earlier this month sought an emergency ruling allowing it to do so to reach migrants or officers in distress and to patrol the southern border.

Biden, long the target of Republicans nationwide as unlawful immigration spiked dramatically over the past three years, has joined in the chorus calling for tough new measures to stem the flow of migrants. On Saturday, the president asked Congress to embrace bipartisan legislation "if they're serious about the border crisis" that is being negotiated and would give him the power to shut down the border if necessary.

"And if given that authority, I would use it the day I sign the bill into law," Biden said in the statement.

At an appearance in Austin on Monday, Republican U.S. Sen. John Cornyn said, "The state of Texas has been left pretty much abandoned by the federal immigration authorities" because Biden has yet to employ many of the tools already granted to him to curb unlawful immigration.

More: Homeland Security demands Texas allow Border Patrol access to Eagle Pass city park

"(Congress) passes laws, but it's up to the executive branch and the president to actually enforce the laws," Cornyn told reporters. "And unfortunately, President Biden has not used the laws already on the books to improve the border."

Retired Army officer Pete Chambers, one of the convoy organizers who says on his website that he was a "liaison" to Abbott early in the state's COVID-19 response and was deployed as part of Operation Lone Star, likened conditions at the border to those at the Alamo in 1836.

In an interview last week on Jones' podcast, Chambers read from a "fellow citizens" letter he wrote paraphrasing Alamo commander William Barret Travis when he was seeking aid as the siege by Antonio López de Santa Anna's forces progressed.

"We are besieged on all sides by forces of evil and by those who have chosen not to uphold their oaths to protect both the Texas and U.S. constitutions," Chambers said on the podcast. "We have sustained a continual bombardment upon our inalienable rights and freedoms and have lost many souls."

Although the Take Our Border Back website reminds participants to be peaceful, follow the law and respect law enforcement officers, the head of the League of United Latin American Citizens issued a "National Alert" warning that the convoy could lead to lawlessness.

"False and inciteful political rhetoric from Governor Greg Abbott is agitating people to possibly commit acts of violence and mass murder," LULAC National President Domingo Garcia said in a news release. "We urge our members, especially those in Texas, to be on alert for armed out-of-state extremists with a hate agenda."

Abbott's office did not respond to an American-Statesman request for comment Monday on the convoy or its implications.

American-Statesman staff writer Lily Kepner contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Take Our Border convoy protest unlawful immigration in Eagle Pass