DO VIGILANTES ROAM BROOKS COUNTY LYNCHING MEXICANS?

By Bill Minutaglio
Texas Monthly

October 7, 2021

The tragedy, at first, seemed a familiar one in the ragged brushlands of South Texas. Border Patrol agents late last week spotted a badly decomposing body in a patch of trees on a ranch in Brooks County, about an hour north of McAllen and the Mexican border.

Nearly 100 other migrants' bodies had been discovered in the county this year, but this one was hanging from a noose that had been fashioned from the remains of a shirt and was tied to a limb on a rugged old oak tree. His head lolled to one side, and his feet were missing, perhaps eaten by coyotes or other animals. Some clothing was found folded nearby. So were identification cards for a Mexican male.

Brooks County sheriff’s deputies said they had made a positive identification of the body. They have contacted Mexican consular officials, but will not release the name of the man – described as being in his twenties – until family members in Mexico have been notified. Brooks County sheriff’s deputies are treating the case as a homicide investigation, while not ruling out the possibility of suicide, and are hoping witnesses will emerge.

After Breitbart and Newsweek reported on the incident, Joaquin Castro, the congressman from San Antonio, took notice. 

He tweeted last weekend: “This appears to be a lynching of a Mexican man in South Texas. I will request an FBI investigation if one has not commenced.” 

Castro, who appears to be the only high-profile official to acknowledge the incident thus far, also called for politicians to stop using rhetoric describing migrants as “invading” the country. This year, Governor Greg Abbott and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick have framed the arrival of thousands of migrants from Central America and Mexico in exactly that way – as an invasion.

As law enforcement determines exactly what happened to the man found dangling from the tree, echoes of the past are sounding again. Given the imprecision of reporting over time, and the intentional whitewashing of history, it’s impossible to know the exact number of lynchings that have taken place in Texas, but they have occurred since the days of the Republic of Texas. 

Some historians estimate there have been over seven hundred lynchings in the state – and perhaps countless more – with hundreds targeting Mexicans or Texans of Mexican heritage.

A century ago, when migrants were seeking safety from the violent uncertainties of the revolution in Mexico, they were sometimes met by mobs armed with chains, ropes, and guns. They were tortured and beaten all along the border. 

Often, anyone with a “foreign” name, U.S. citizen or not, was in danger of being singled out. Many of the attacks followed heated statements from public officials that Texas was going to be overrun by desperate migrants surging across the river, and that the intruders were going to be bringing a host of plagues – crime, disease, poverty, and even socialism. 

It was rhetoric similar to that of Patrick, who told Fox News host Laura Ingraham in mid-September that allowing migrants into the U.S. constituted “a silent revolution by the Democrat Party and [President] Joe Biden to take over the country.”

To read rest of article, click on link: https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/immigrant-lynched-brooks-county/