Greg Abbott Uses Racist, Dehumanizing Language When Referring To Murder Victims
This is far from the first tragedy Abbott has politicized to push an agenda.
Today, Governor Greg Abbott referred to the five murdered victims in Cleveland, including an eight-year-old boy, as “illegal.”
The term "illegal immigrants" is dehumanizing because it reduces individuals to their legal status or lack thereof rather than acknowledging them as human beings with complex identities and experiences. It suggests that their entire existence is inherently unlawful and criminal.
This also perpetuates negative stereotypes and attitudes towards immigrants and refugees. The demonization of these individuals makes them seem less deserving of empathy and respect.
We live in Greg Abbott’s version of Texas.
This is similar to the language he used leading up to the El Paso Walmart massacre. He received a huge backlash in that case, but he seems to have never learned a lesson.
It takes a special kind of monster to express the immigration status of murder victims when looking for information regarding the perpetrator.
Whether the victims were undocumented or not, it was Abbott’s policies that led to this tragedy. The lack of background checks and loose laws for private sellers led to this tragedy. Under Texas law, private sellers are not obligated to check someone’s ID or citizenship status.
This is Sonia Argentina Gúzman and Daniel Enrique Laso-Guzman, mother and son, who died Friday night in the mass shooting in Cleveland.
They were human beings who were murdered by a drunken maniac wielding an AR-15, which Abbott and other Texas Republicans refuse to ban.
And while Abbott is using this tragedy as another political opportunity, the rest of us know that the blood of these victims is on his hands. As were the victims of El Paso, Uvalde, and every other innocent person struck down by gun violence in this state.
Texas leads the nation in mass shootings. And this will always be Greg Abbott’s legacy.