Dupage Policy Journal

Delia Ramirez, Congresswoman representing Illinois' 3rd district, said that white supremacy is to blame for a recent Brownsville car crash despite the suspect being Hispanic.

According to KHOU 11 News, on May 7, the driver of an SUV in Brownsville, Texas ran a red light, lost control of the vehicle causing it to flip and crash into 18 people at a bus station across the street from a migrant shelter. Six of the victims died at the scene, with two others succumbing to their injuries at the hospital. The remaining victims are currently in recovery. The driver was identified by Brownsville police as 34-year-old George Alvarez, who was arrested and charged with eight counts of manslaughter and ten counts of aggravated assault. He is currently being held on a $3.6 million bond.

A Brownsville native, Alvarez has a lengthy rap sheet with multiple accounts of assault, burglary, theft, DWI, and resisting arrest, according to the police. Videos of the incident show him having to be pinned down by people at the crash site to prevent him from fleeing the scene. All 18 of the people he hit appear to be men from Venezuela, with the community receiving an influx of migrants from the country in recent months. Alvarez was intoxicated at the time of the crash, and police are determining if the collision with the migrants was intentional or not.

Congresswoman Delia Ramirez (D-IL) represents Illinois’ 3rd Congressional District, including parts of DuPage County. During a hearing, she claimed that the continual anti-immigration comments by Republican legislators are the cause behind events like Brownsville.

“That word invasion is a word that I hear frequently in this committee room, in the US Congress by Republican members referring to immigrants - asylum seekers. And these types of immigrant attacks have not stopped.” She referenced the investigation in Brownsville, “this dangerous and disgusting white supremacist rhetoric has fueled deadly violence again and again.”

Critics were quick to question Ramirez's claim in light of Alvarez being Hispanic. 

"Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-IL) says "white supremacy" and Republican members of Congress using the term "invasion" to describe the border crisis was responsible for the man in Brownsville, TX killing eight illegal migrants with his SUV. The suspect, in that case, was a Hispanic man," Greg Price, Director of Communications at the State Freedom Caucus Network, wrote in a May 16 Twitter post.