The League of United Latin American Citizens is planning counterprotests across Texas in response to Gov. Greg Abbott’s announcement that he mobilized the Texas National Guard ahead of demonstrations against the Trump administration this week.

“We have 277 councils in the state of Texas, and so you’re going to see a lot of folks out there protesting,” LULAC CEO Juan Proaño said Wednesday during a webinar hosted by the national advocacy group UnidosUS.

Texas is the state where LULAC is the “strongest,” Proaño added.

Wednesday’s webinar saw several Latino, civil rights and immigrant advocacy groups denounce what they called “federal overreach” in President Donald Trump’s decision to federalize 4,000 California National Guard troops and mobilize 700 U.S. Marines in response to protests against his immigration agenda in Los Angeles.

“The protest that you’re seeing in Los Angeles is not just a protest in regards to the actions that ICE is taking,” Proaño said. “It’s also a protest against the Trump administration and what they’ve been doing, and that’s why you’re starting to see it begin to take root in other states around the country, and this movement will continue to grow and grow and grow.”

Abbott announced he had sent Texas National Guard troops to San Antonio in response to a similar protest planned there on Wednesday, and would deploy soldiers to the “No Kings” demonstrations in other cities across the state on Saturday.

UnidosUS President and CEO Janet Murguía said there has not been any reason to send the Texas National Guard to San Antonio.

“It’s not surprising that these unlawful overreach actions would be replicated by others in an effort to intimidate and terrorize,” she said.

The action is necessary to “uphold law and order” in Texas cities where mass demonstrations are planned, according to Andrew Mahaleris, Abbott’s press secretary.

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

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Tuesday night, Abbott said the deployment will “ensure peace and order,” adding, “Peaceful protest is legal. Harming a person or property is illegal & will lead to arrest.”

Latino advocacy leaders call on protesters to demonstrate peacefully

During Wednesday’s webinar, Murguía urged protesters across the country to “refrain from violence and escalation,” and noted the “long history of engaging in and calling for non-violent protests” of the civil rights leaders who participated.

“We urge everyone taking to the streets to remain peaceful,” Proaño said. “Our power is our unity and non-violence. Do not give anyone an excuse to silence your voice.”

In an interview with the Star-Telegram, Proaño said that demonstrators in Texas should take extra care during protests due to the state’s top executive.

“You have a governor that’s going to double down on this administration’s threats, and attorney general that’s going to triple down on this administration’s threats,” he said. “So while in California you got a Democratic governor, you got a Democratic mayor, that are pushing back and pushing back and fighting back against this administration, in Texas you have the opposite. You have two folks there that are supporting it lock, stock and barrel.”

He was in Los Angeles on Sunday night, and saw a stark difference between the National Guard soldiers and local law enforcement in terms of how they dealt with protesters. The former was “overly aggressive,” he said. “These federal agencies are being overly forcible.”

LULAC conducts thorough training, planning and briefings before a protest, Proaño said.

“We’re working with other nonprofit organizations, other community groups and other leaders so they know first and foremost what their rights are, how to exercise those rights, how to do so peacefully and how to do so in a way where they’re not risking themselves,” he said.

Civil rights leaders put immigration enforcement in context

Among those to speak Wednesday was civil rights leader the Rev. Al Sharpton, who described the cause protesters have taken up as one of human rights.

“Don’t let them separate us saying that this is about those that they call ‘migrant’ or ‘illegal,’” he said. “No, this is about human rights.”

He put the protests in context by referring to the Trump administration’s admittance of white South African citizens as refugees in recent weeks. Trump has said without evidence that white South Africans have been subject to “genocide” and displacement, which that country’s government has said is false.

“You do not have one system for white South Afrikaners that you brought in this country just two weeks ago, 59 of them, saying there was genocide against whites in South Africa, and not one camera can find it, but you can separate families that have come from Latino communities or Latino nations at the same time,” Sharpton said.

Damon Hewitt, president and CEO of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, called the involvement of soldiers in protests a “direct assault” on the Civil Rights Movement and a “deliberate attempt to manufacture a crisis and use it as an excuse to normalize violence against communities of color.”

He mentioned the lack of National Guard troops at the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol and the white supremacist “Unite the Right” march in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.

“But when our communities take the stand to protect our families, our children, then the military is called in,” he said. “This is a needless, intentional provocation.”

Murguía likewise countered narratives of violent protesters looking to sow chaos.

“What our folks are doing is they’re going to respond based on a sense of fairness, a sense of justice and a sense of solidarity with what we’re seeing happening in Los Angeles today,” she said. “And that is going to be both orchestrated and organic, because people have visceral reactions to seeing the stamping out of basic rights and they believe in the right to protest as a right to free assembly.”

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