Gov. Greg Abbott sends Texas National Guard to sites of planned immigration protests

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Gov. Greg Abbott announced Thursday morning he would deploy over 5,000 Texas National Guard troops across the state in anticipation of protests against federal deportation raids.

Abbott initially confirmed the deployment Tuesday night, and clarified the number of troops to be sent across the state on Thursday. Abbott said 2,000 additional Texas Department of Public Safety troopers would also be deployed. In a Tuesday social media post, Abbott wrote that the troop deployments were intended to “ensure peace & order” at the protests.

“Peaceful protest is legal. Harming a person or property is illegal & will lead to arrest,” the governor wrote. He did not specify where the National Guard would be sent.

The news comes amid demonstrations against immigration raids that started in Los Angeles last week and have spread across the country, including to Texas. On Monday evening, hundreds of protesters gathered in downtown Austin for a march that ended in the arrest of thirteen people and police firing tear gas into a portion of the crowd that refused to leave. A protest on Wednesday in San Antonio was the first in Texas with the National Guard present. It went late into the night peacefully with no one taken into custody, according to the San Antonio Express-News.

Over the weekend, President Donald Trump deployed 2,000 California National Guard troops to Los Angeles in response to protests there, doing so without permission from Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who appointed the state guard’s adjutant general. Newsom responded by accusing Trump of choosing “theatrics over public safety” and blaming him for escalating the “chaos and violence” that unfolded.

California officials on Monday sued the Trump administration in a bid to halt the deployment, calling it an “unprecedented usurpation of state authority and resources.”

Andrew Mahaleris, an Abbott spokesperson, confirmed Wednesday that Texas National Guard soldiers “are on standby in areas where mass demonstrations are planned in case they are needed.”

“Peaceful protests are part of the fabric of our nation, but Texas will not tolerate the lawlessness we have seen in Los Angeles,” Mahaleris said in a statement. “Anyone engaging in acts of violence or damaging property will be swiftly held accountable to the full extent of the law.”

There are “No Kings” protests planned for Saturday in over two dozen Texas cities, including Houston, Austin, Lubbock and Longview. The title of the events — organized by a coalition of progressive groups including 50501 and Indivisible — is meant to signal opposition to what the organizers see as Trump’s authoritarian actions.

Several other organizations also have individual protests planned, including Women's March's "Kick Out the Clowns" protest on Saturday. Immigrant Families and Students in the Fight, known as FIEL, is also planning a “Chant Down the Walls” protest in Houston on Friday.

To prepare, the Harris County Sheriff’s Office is “coordinating with area public safety partners” to ensure that the demonstrations on Saturday will play out without endangering the public, the agency said in a statement.

“Harris County has a long history of people exercising their right to protest peacefully while respecting opposing viewpoints, and I fully expect Saturday’s demonstrations to continue that legacy,” Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said in the statement.

Austin Mayor Kirk Watson said he is “supportive of people exercising their right to engage in peaceful protest against politics and policies that they disagree with. However, destructive actions or efforts to hurt police is wrong.”

“Much of what we see out of Washington is to create fear and chaos — we should not play into these politics of fear,” Watson, a Democrat, said in a statement. “Adding to the chaos — through destruction of property, hurting other people, including police officers, or otherwise — adds to the problems for those people being targeted while empowering those in Washington who want more pain and chaos.”

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