Image Source: NPR
In February, a convoy of trucks calling themselves “Take our border back” traveled from Virginia to the Texas-Mexico border to show support for the Texas government in its protest against the federal government over the immigration crisis. The convoy’s final destination was Quemado, Texas, 20 miles from Eagle Pass, where the Texas National Guard refused to let federal Border Patrol Agents access the area. The convoy’s stated aim was a peaceful protest, yet upon arriving in Texas, the convoy included violent extremist groups such as the Proud Boys, neo-Nazi groups, and militias. In response, the League of United Latin American Citizens issued an alert, warning that some members of the convoy were armed with both weapons and extremist views “especially in terms of the fear-mongering and scapegoating of immigrants and Hispanics.”
In the midst of frustration and legitimate political discourse over concerns with U.S. immigration policy, there has been a surge in the use of violent language consistent with the Great Replacement Theory to promote violence against immigrants at the U.S. southern border. As defined by the Counter Extremism Project, the “great replacement theory” states non-white immigrants are replacing white populations. While various ethno-nationalist groups who adhere to the great replacement theory state they are non-violent, others use the Great Replacement Theory to justify violence, as evidenced by the 2019 New Zealand Mosque shooter who named his manifesto “The Great Replacement.” The surge in the use of violent online language to describe immigrants at the U.S. southern border normalizes dehumanizing language that promotes the bigoted “great replacement theory,” which not only foments discord amongst the U.S. population but also may lead to violence.
The Great Replacement Theory and Immigration
The number of immigrants arriving at the U.S. southern border hit a record-breaking high of 3.2 million encounters in fiscal year 2023. As more immigrants arrived, the U.S. immigration system has been stretched thinner and thinner, unable to keep up with the number of arrivals. The U.S. asylum system was never intended to handle the number of immigrants that the U.S. is facing today, resulting in an increasing number of paroled immigrants who are released into the United States until their cases can be assessed. As a result, a Pew Research survey conducted in January found that 78% of Americans say that the large number of migrants attempting to enter the U.S. through the southern border is either a crisis (45%) or a major problem (32%). The Pew Survey also found that the most common worry amongst 57% of the general population is that a large number of migrants seeking to enter the country leads to more crime.
While debating U.S. border policies and expressing grievances with state and federal immigration policies is a First Amendment right, such rhetoric can often take on an increasingly violent overtone when incorporating rhetoric from the great replacement theory. The great replacement theory frames the immigration crisis using “martial and violent rhetoric,” stating that an “invasion” must be stopped before it conquers all of “white America.” Additionally, as the National Immigration Forum explains, the great replacement theory proposes welcoming immigrants is “part of a plot designed to undermine or ‘replace’ the political power and culture of white people living in Western countries.” Furthermore, the theory often incorporates anti-semitism, stating that “Jewish elites” are responsible for the “replacement plot.” Taken altogether, white supremacists have adopted the theory to fit into their perceived threat of “white genocide” and their notion that immigrants and non-white people are systemically replacing or destroying white people in the United States.
As a result, the “invasion rhetoric” associated with the great replacement theory serves to “otherize migrants” and increases the risks of violence being directed toward immigrant communities. Such dehumanizing rhetoric is a common extremist tactic and creates in-groups and out-groups to justify actions and policies that hurt the out-group. The more that people become immune to “dehumanizing narratives,” the more people stop seeing each other as equal, thereby fueling intergroup violence.
Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists and the Great Replacement Theory
Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists (REMVEs) are often motivated by the Great Replacement Theory to commit violence. A RAND study defines REMVEs as a “loosely organized movement of individuals and groups that espouse some combination of racist, anti-Semitic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, misogynistic, and homophobic ideology.” Many REMVEs adhere to the great replacement theory and are primarily motivated by the belief that Caucasian, or “Aryan,” peoples represent a superior race and that the white race is under threat. As a result, the primary goal of REMVEs is to create a white ethno-state, often through the use of violence. Because of their willingness to use violence, the U.S. intelligence community has clearly stated that REMVEs are among the most lethal domestic violent extremists and the most likely to conduct mass-casualty attacks against civilians.
Unfortunately, there are a multitude of instances in which the Great Replacement Theory and racist anti-immigration beliefs have resulted in deadly violence. In 2019, a man entered a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, and shot dead 49 worshippers. Before entering the Mosque, the man wrote and released a manifesto titled “The Great Replacement,” in which he cited watching “invaders,” or non-white immigrants, at a shopping mall as the moment of epiphany when he decided to resort to violence. The manifesto also stated, “millions of people [are] pouring across our borders … [i]nvited by the state and corporate entities to replace the White people who have failed to reproduce.” The goal of the attack, as the manifesto stated, was to “show the invaders that our lands will never be their lands.”
In the United States, also in 2019, a man in Texas carried out a mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, killing 23 people and injuring 22. Like the New Zealand shooter, the Texas shooter wrote a manifesto titled “An Inconvenient Truth,” in which he characterized himself as a white nationalist motivated to violence in “response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas.” The manifesto also directly cited the New Zealand shooter and the Great Replacement Theory, noting that he had hoped to kill as many Hispanic people as possible because they were “replacing native-born Americans.”
Similarly, in 2022, an 18-year-old gunman opened fire at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, aiming to target Black shoppers, resulting in the death of 10 individuals. The gunman left behind a 180-page manifesto in which he described himself as, “I am simply a White man seeking to protect and serve my community, my people, my culture, and my race.” In leaving behind the manifesto, the gunman also stated his goal was to “spread awareness to my fellow whites about the real problems the West is facing” and “encourage further attacks that will eventually start the war that will save the Western World.” The gunman’s manifesto also cited the 2019 Mosque shooting as part of his inspiration for the attack.
REMVEs, The Great Replacement Theory, and the Current Immigration Crisis
Policymakers should be concerned about the increasing use of violent language online that furthers the ideals of the great replacement theory. During the previously mentioned Texas government’s protest against federal immigration policies, research groups such as the nonprofit organization Global Project Against Hate Extremism found that there was an “online explosion of invasion and great replacement rhetoric.” Researchers found that online groups of Texas Proud Boys shared posts referring to “brown immigrant invaders” and urged followers to “grab your guns.” At the same time, a neo-Nazi network issued a call “for White men to join the resistance” in Texas. Similarly, an individual who had previously gained public acknowledgment for brandishing a gun at Black Lives Matter protestors in 2020 addressed the crowds at a rally in Texas, referring to immigrants as “evil,” “pedophiles,” and “monsters.” Furthermore, within this online environment, white supremacists, Proud Boys, and other extremist groups were “taking advantage of the standoff to push their propaganda and recruit new members.”
Although no violence occurred in February during the convoy rallies, this may not always be the case. A study from the Journal of Global Security Studies found that “an increase in migration both exacerbates the grievances among the far right and increases the saliency of migration as a political issue.” As a result, groups may often utilize their grievances to “set up false ‘us versus them’ battles and make things seem like zero-sum games. These battle narratives rile people up,” leading to groups responding by “committing terrorist attacks.” Furthermore, as a national security correspondent for National Public Radio stated, “extremists are opportunists,” and as more people frame immigration debates in the language of the Great Replacement Theory, extremists may become increasingly willing to commit violence.
Due to the importance of the U.S. Southern Border as a politically charged issue, debate about immigration policies will likely continue through the 2024 election. However, amid reasonable political debate about how to reform the U.S. immigration system, policymakers should be concerned about great replacement rhetoric inspiring individuals to commit violence. With such violent language becoming increasingly acceptable in public political discourse, potential REMVEs may feel emboldened to act.
While a solution to the use of the Internet to further violent ideologies is a long-term goal, advocacy groups and NGOs, such as the Global Project Against Hate Extremism, should continue to call out instances of violent speech online. By raising awareness of violent speech that promotes the use of violence to further the great replacement theory, advocacy and research groups can counteract some of the rhetoric that is disseminated across social media.. Additionally, federal law enforcement agencies should prepare for potential attacks on immigrant communities, such as at asylum shelters. Most importantly, though, as the Council on Foreign Relations states, what is truly needed is a broader effort to “counter the dehumanization of immigrants in American political rhetoric and finally enact much-needed immigration law reforms that would make the border less of a partisan, political flashpoint.” Policymakers should be concerned over the rise in the use of the great replacement theory to promote violence against immigrants because such speech may lead to actual manifestations of violence.