The Authoritarian Handbook – by Melissa del Bosque

It all started in early February in El Paso, when investigators from the Texas Attorney General’s Office arrived on the scene Announcement Housea Catholic nonprofit that has been providing services in the region for nearly 50 years. The investigators demanded that the nonprofit hand over its operational records within 24 hours, including medical records, names, dates of birth and other personal information about migrants staying in the shelters. After the nonprofit submitted Paxton filed a lawsuit, asking a judge to determine whether it had to provide the documents. Paxton then filed a countersuit to shut down Annunciation House, calling it a “hiding place.”

Paxton’s campaign of legal intimidation then moved east to the Rio Grande Valley to target other organizations working with immigrants, including the right-wing Heritage Foundation, the think tank that supports the authoritarian Project2025 Paxton’s campaign, in the guidebook “Mandate for Leadership,” is part of an election year plan to create a “great replacement” and “border invasion” conspiracies, which are then spread by MAGA elected officials and MAGA media outlets like Fox News. This is done to undermine Americans’ faith in the electoral system and tilt the vote toward Trump and authoritarianism.

Trump and allies, including Paxton, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and his Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, have been repeating the Great Replacement conspiracy theory that brown and black border crossers are illegally coming to vote in U.S. elections at the behest of President Biden and the Democrats. But the U.S.-Mexico border is anything but “open,” as MAGA followers often claim. Every year, thousands of migration related deathsand the United States spend billions on border militarization. Cases of non-citizens voting in U.S. elections are incredibly rareand non-citizens are forbidden of voting in federal elections for at least 100 years. Despite these facts, Paxton has embarked on a propaganda and jurisdiction campaign against nonprofits along the U.S.-Mexico border, and even in Guatemala, accusing them of everything from “human smuggling” to operating “hideouts.”

In a press releasePaxton said his lawsuit to close Annunciation House was necessary because “the chaos at the southern border has created an environment where NGOs, funded with Biden administration taxpayer dollars, are enabling astonishing horrors, including human trafficking.”

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As global migration has increased in many parts of the world, including the U.S.-Mexico border region, Annunciation House and its shelters have played a significant role in helping El Paso cope with the number of people arriving. Ruben Garcia, the founder and director of Annunciation House, condemned the AG’s actions in a press release:

“Annunciation House has kept hundreds of thousands of refugees off the streets and fed them as they pass through our city. Its work helps our local businesses, our city, and immigration officials keep people off the streets and house them as they pass through our community. If the work Annunciation House does is illegal, so is the work of our local hospitals, schools, and food banks.”

In July, State District Judge Francisco X. Dominguez governed that Paxton’s subpoena for documents and his attempt to close Annunciation House were unconstitutional and called his actions “outrageous and unacceptable.”

In a scathing ruling, he wrote that Paxton, “as the chief law enforcement officer of the State of Texas … has a duty to uphold all laws, and not merely selectively interpret or abuse those laws that can be manipulated to advance his own personal beliefs or political agenda.”

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Since Paxton’s failed foray into El Paso, his office has focused other border nonprofits, including Team Brownsville, Angeles Sin Fronteras in Mission and Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, which have repeatedly harassed over the years by far-right figures, including Alex Jones. Paxton’s efforts are led by Assistant Attorney General Levi Fuller, who served in Paxton’s Election Integrity Unit until September 2023, when he moved to specialty litigation and nonprofit enforcement. In a recent articleFuller cast doubt on the 2020 election results. Referring to the upcoming November election, he said, “You should never be afraid to question the outcome of an election.”

I spoke with members of two of the organizations that were targeted, both of whom spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing litigation with the attorney general’s office. Attention appeared to have focused on the Rio Grande Valley, they said, after two brothers who call themselves “the muckrakers” and are affiliated with the Heritage Foundation falsely accused an organization in neighboring Matamoros, Mexico, that distributed a flyer encouraging migrants to vote for Joe Biden. A post on X about the fake flyer went viral and was shared widely by MAGA lawmakers, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Not long after, Fuller from the attorney general’s office contacted them, they said, asking about their connections to the organization in Mexico and requesting documents. “Ultimately, they want to shut us down,” a member of one of the border organizations told me. “In 2022, Governor Abbott said he wanted to shut down NGOs that he said facilitated illegal immigration, but we’re not doing that. We’re helping vulnerable people after they’ve already been processed by Border Patrol.”

Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the nonprofit organization Global project against hate and extremismsaid Paxton’s tactics in Texas resemble those of Viktor Orbán, the prime minister of Hungary, who has become a model of authoritarianism, or “illiberal democracy,” for the MAGA movement in the United States. In Hungary, Beirich said, Orbán used the government to intimidate and shut down nonprofits, universities and independent news organizations. And he specifically targeted groups that served or represented immigrants, women and LGBTQ people. “The basic principle for an authoritarian leader is that you demonize and scapegoat populations because it instills fear in their followers and builds their support,” she said. “People respond to fear, and they respond to it politically.”

Project 2025 is copy Orbán’s playbook, she said, and far-right leaders and groups around the world are meeting more often to share tactics, ideas and networks. “The international far-right conference circuit is growing,” she said.CPAC (The Conservative Political Action Conference) is just one example. They’re holding it in Brazil, Mexico, and they’ve brought Orbán to Texas. So you end up with people like Bolsonaro in the room with (Mexican right-wing politician Eduardo) Verástegui, Orbán, Trump, Paxton, Bannon. And they all share this scripts now at a transnational level.”

In at least one case, authorities have gone beyond sharing playbooks and worked directly across borders. Around the same time that the Heritage Foundation was targeting the Matamoros aid center in Mexico, the Guatemalan attorney general’s office sought Paxton’s help in investigating nonprofits in Guatemala and Texas for “child trafficking.” Two weeks later raids the office of a British charity, Save the childrenin Guatemala City, saying it was investigating a complaint about the trafficking of Guatemalan children to Texas. “The Attorney General’s Office received a complaint that referred to and pointed out incidents involving Guatemalan children and teenagers who were vulnerable in shelters in Texas, connected to a network that (consists of) NGOs operating in the United States and Guatemala,” said Attorney General’s Office spokesman Juan Luis Pantaleon, told CNN after the invasion on April 25.

I have submitted public information requests to both Paxton’s and Abbott’s offices, requesting a copy of the complaint filed against Save the Children. Both offices responded with a copy of the letter of the Guatemalan prosecutor, but said they had no other responsive documents. Requests for comment on the complaint, or a copy of the complaint, to their news agencies were ignored.

Save the Children, which has provided food aid and educational services in Guatemala since 1976, declined to be interviewed but sent a statement to The Border Chronicle regarding the raid. “The Guatemalan Attorney General’s Office found no evidence of misconduct during their search, nor did they remove any documents or electronic files from our building,” the statement said. “Our commitment will always be to protect the rights of children. We have not and have never facilitated the removal of children from Guatemala.”

The architect of the raid, Rafael Curruchiche, who heads Guatemala’s prosecutor’s office, was arrested in 2022 on a list of corrupt officials by the US government for “disrupting high-profile corruption cases,” and he also tried to illegally to overthrow Guatemala’s 2023 presidential election. Paxton fought accusations by corruption and fraud – some of the allegations were made by his own former employees – over the past decade. He also filed a controversial summary proceedings with the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. As a result, he was charged with professional misconduct by the Texas State Bar.

Paxton and Governor Abbott targeting organizations that work with immigrants is part of the authoritarian playbook that many anti-democratic officials around the world use to gain power, Beirich said. “Talking about ‘invasion’ and ‘immigrant crime’ is demonizing the immigrant population, and now they’re going after those who work with immigrants in various ways,” she said. “It’s not just about propaganda. It’s about making people’s lives unbearable, increasing the climate of hostility toward immigrants, and instilling fear.”

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