Texas Governor Abbott orders deployment of thousands of troops throughout the state in anticipation of statewide immigration demonstrations.
Texas Prepares for Weekend Immigration Protest Wave
Gov. Greg Abbott has mobilized a whopping 7,000 troops from the Texas National Guard and the Department of Public Safety across the state, as anticipation swells for a tsunami of immigration protests this weekend.
Uproar sparked by large-scale immigration raids in Los Angeles last week has created political turbulence across the nation. Texas is no exception, with over 60 demonstrations lined up in key cities statewide this weekend, including Dallas, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio.
Thursday saw Abbott announce the deployment of over 5,000 National Guard members and 2,000 DPS officers, supposedly to bolster local law enforcement.
He blasted on social media, "Texas will not put up with the LA chaos. Anyone besmirching property or harming a soul will be hauled off. Be warned: Don't push your luck in Texas."
In LA, confrontations between demonstrators and police, freeway blocks, and property damage led to dozens of arrests. In response, President Donald Trump dispatched 700 U.S. Marines to the West Coast, in addition to the 2,000 National Guard troops already present.
The chaos has set off protests in cities across the nation, with Texas not an exception. While protests in the state have generally been low-key, tensions heightened earlier in the week. In Austin, more than a dozen protesters landed behind bars after hundreds gathered at the Texas Capitol. They toppled construction barriers and marred a federal building with anti-Trump graffiti. The same day, Dallas police employed pepper balls on demonstrators and made one arrest, but protests in San Antonio Wednesday evening remained incident-free.
Over in North Texas, at least 15 protests, rallying under the "No Kings" banner, were scheduled in opposition to the Trump administration's immigration policies and purported authoritarianism[2]. San Antonio played host to protests against ICE actions and the Trump administration's immigration policies, with about 400 protesters participating earlier in the month and additional demonstrations slated for June 14, 2025[1][4]. Despite the deployments of Texas National Guard troops and state troopers to keep order, no violent clashes between protesters and police have been reported thus far[4][5]. Protesters in San Antonio were redirected from The Alamo by Texas state troopers, who steered them towards San Antonio City Hall, where they marched without issue[4]. The protests form part of a broader movement contesting the Trump administration's immigration policies, including escalated enforcement and deportation actions[2][4], with organizers stressing the peaceful nature of the protests, campaigning against authoritarianism and championing democratic values[2].
- The news of large-scale immigration protests in key Texas cities this weekend has escalated concerns about public safety.
- Shortly after the immigration protests started in Los Angeles, social-media platforms were flooded with updates, images, and videos of the events, raising the stakes for general-news outlets and citizens alike.
- As war-and-conflicts and crime-and-justice stories dominate the news, the entertainment industry has started to address the political unrest in their content, weaving elements of the ongoing immigration dispute into TV shows and films.
- With the increasing number of immigration protests and arrests, some fear that this could lead to a heated political dialogue, potentially exacerbating tensions and fuelling chaos not only in Texas but across the nation.
