Come November, we will see how many Latinos will vote for the party that thinks killing Latinos is fine, whether they are citizens or undocumented. ICE has killed a Latino citizen.
Abbott was Trump’s partner when the raids were popular. He discovered independence only after ICE killed someone in Texas.
That is the sharp opening, but the complete record adds an important complication: Abbott had discovered a little independence once before.
On January 7, an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Good in Minneapolis. On January 24, Border Patrol agents killed Alex Pretti, an intensive-care nurse who was carrying a legally permitted handgun but was holding a cellphone when officers confronted him. Both were American citizens.
Two days after Pretti was killed, Abbott said the Trump White House needed to “recalibrate” its immigration operation and return its attention to removing people who were in the country illegally. But Abbott did not directly break with Trump or condemn the agents. He defended law enforcement and placed much of the blame on Minnesota’s Democratic governor and local leaders, accusing them of encouraging disorder. (Texas Standard)
Abbott’s message was carefully constructed: the federal government might need to change its tactics, but Democratic leaders were still responsible for creating the conditions in which people were being killed.
Gina Hinojosa was not nearly as careful.
That same day, she said Abbott was helping make the federal operation possible by providing state assistance and detention facilities. She accused him of facilitating ICE operations that had detained children and killed American citizens, and she called on him to stop providing Texas resources until the Department of Homeland Security changed its behavior. (Gina Hinojosa for Texas Governor)
Then the shooting moved to Texas.
On July 7, an ICE agent shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo while federal officers were attempting to stop the construction van he was driving through Houston’s East End. Federal authorities later acknowledged that Salgado Araujo was not the person they had originally been seeking. (The Texas Tribune)
This time Abbott did not immediately call for recalibration.
Later that same day, Abbott hosted Trump border czar Tom Homan on a national radio program. Homan boasted that ICE had arrested 10,000 people in fewer than five days.
“Well, you guys are doing a great job,” Abbott told him.
Neither man mentioned that ICE had killed someone in Houston that morning. Abbott continued speaking publicly and posting on social media, but for days he said nothing about Salgado Araujo. (Houston Chronicle)
That silence exposed the weakness in Abbott’s January position. The Minnesota victims were American citizens, making it politically safer for a Republican governor to question the operation. Salgado Araujo was undocumented, making it more dangerous for Abbott to criticize Trump and ICE—even though Salgado Araujo had lived here for decades, had no serious criminal history and was on his way to a construction job.
Hinojosa responded the day after the killing. She demanded transparency, video evidence and a Texas Rangers investigation. Two days later, she filed a public-information request seeking records of the state’s involvement and again called for an independent investigation. (Gina Hinojosa for Texas Governor)
Abbott finally spoke on July 15, eight days after the shooting.
“We don’t want to see people shot. Period,” he said.
Abbott announced that the Texas Rangers would participate in the investigation and said immigration laws could be enforced “without shooting people.” (Houston Chronicle)
The new Fox News poll showing Hinojosa only one point behind Abbott was conducted later, from July 23 through July 27, so the poll itself did not cause Abbott’s statement. But politicians conduct their own polling, watch community reaction, and understand when an issue threatens voters they have spent years trying to win. The Fox poll confirmed the danger publicly: Hinojosa was within the poll’s three-point margin of error, even though some voters supporting James Talarico were still crossing over to Abbott. (Houston Chronicle)
Hinojosa does not need to argue that Abbott personally ordered anyone to be shot. She has a simpler case.
Abbott supplied state resources. He celebrated the arrests. He praised Trump’s border czar. He attacked those protesting the raids. When Americans were killed in Minnesota, he briefly asked Washington to reconsider its tactics. When an undocumented worker was killed in Houston, Abbott went silent and congratulated the people running the operation.
Only after the killing became a Texas political problem did Abbott rediscover that immigration laws could be enforced without killing people.
That is where Hinojosa can separate Hispanic voters from Abbott. She does not have to ask them to oppose border security or immigration enforcement. She can ask a much more basic question:
Why does Greg Abbott remember that human life matters only after ICE kills someone and the polls begin to move?
