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TEXAS AG RAIDS HOMES OF LATINO CIVIL RIGHTS GROUP MEMBERS, SETTING UP
A VOTING RIGHTS SHOWDOWN  
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Suzanne Gamboa and Jane C. Timm
August 26, 2024
NBC News
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_ The raids have triggered outrage and cries of voter suppression in
a state with a long history of discrimination against citizens of
Mexican descent, which helped give rise to LULAC, founded in 1929. _

LULAC leaders and others whose homes were raided protest Monday in
San Antonio. (NBC News),

 

Raids on the homes of several Democrats in South Texas, in what the
state attorney general said is an ongoing election integrity
investigation, has set off a showdown with the nation’s oldest
Latino civil rights group.

The Aug. 20 raids targeted Manuel Medina, chair of the Tejano
Democrats, several members of the League of United Latin American
Citizens, a state House candidate and a local area mayor.

 
Lidia Martinez, who volunteers for LULAC and also does voter
registration, questioned the search of all her belongings.  (NBC
News)
The raids have triggered outrage and accusations of voter suppression
in a state with a long history of discrimination against its citizens
of Mexican descent, which gave rise to LULAC in 1929.

On Monday morning, LULAC leaders, state legislators, activists of
other Latino groups and supporters and some of the people whose homes
were raided protested outside the San Antonio office of Attorney
General Ken Paxton, a Republican. 

“This is point blank voter intimidation, and LULAC will fight for
the right of every Latino to exercise the right to vote,” said Roman
Palomares, LULAC's national president.

A copy of a wide-ranging search warrant left with one of the people
targeted, LULAC volunteer Lidia Martinez, 87, of San Antonio, offered
a window into the investigation’s interests. The warrant ordered the
seizure of all electronic devices at her home, allowed for the opening
of documents that were business-, organization- or election-related,
and authorized swabbing for DNA. According to the warrant, the purpose
of the search was to look for evidence of violations of the Texas
election laws regarding vote harvesting and identity fraud.

Medina’s home was also “forcibly entered” in the early morning
of Aug. 20. According to a filing from his attorney, officers woke up
Medina, his wife and two young daughters, and “rummaged through the
residence” for seven hours, the attorney said, searching through the
living spaces, closets, kitchen, bathrooms, garage and the family’s
bedrooms. Officers seized 65 cellphones and 41 computers and storage
devices, the filing said.

Two Democratic consultants who weren’t knowledgeable about
Medina’s business or the investigation said someone running an
election phone banking or canvassing operation can have multiple
phones and computers for volunteers and staff.

Medina's attorney was granted his request for an injunction to block
the attorney general or any other state officials from reviewing the
documents or disseminating them. A hearing on the search and seizures
was set for Sept. 12.

In his filing requesting the injunction, Medina's attorney said
authorities seized almost 65 cell phones and 41 computers, digital and
other storage devices, papers, documents and family and other
photographs.

The attorney and Medina declined comment when reached Friday by NBC
News.

“There is no poll tax. There is no white-only primary. There is no
going back. We will not go back,” Domingo Garcia, LULAC’s former
president, said during Monday’s protest. Garcia now heads a recently
formed LULAC political action committee that endorsed Kamala Harris.

Paxton, who announced the raids Thursday in a news release
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has been outspoken in advancing baseless claims about voter fraud —
particularly about noncitizens voting in the upcoming election.

“There’s a reason Joe Biden brought people here illegally,”
Paxton said on a radio show earlier this month
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“I’m convinced that that’s how they’re going to do it this
time, they’re going to use the illegal vote. Why were they brought
in, why did he bring in 14 million people? He brought them here to
vote.”

Paxton falsely
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that immigrants were being given Social Security numbers at the border
as part of the scheme, too. There’s no evidence of that, or that
noncitizens cast ballots in any significant numbers.

In the release announcing the raids, Paxton said his office would have
no further comments on the investigation. NBC News reached out Friday
and has not received a response.

But the release did state that the raids were the result of a two-year
investigation based on allegations of voting and election violations
from Audrey Gossett Louis
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five area counties.

Latino leaders have called on the Department of Justice to investigate
and are alleging the raids are a political move to suppress Latino
votes.  A Justice Department spokesperson said they are aware of the
matter but declined to comment.

“It is disgraceful and outrageous that the state of Texas, and its
highest-ranking law enforcement officer, is once again using the power
of his office to instill fear in the hearts of community members who
volunteer their time to promote civic engagement,” said Gabriel
Rosales, Texas state director of LULAC, which focuses on Latino
economic, political and civil rights.

“I have been contacted by elderly residents who are confused and
frightened, wondering why they have been singled out. Attorney General
Paxton’s actions clearly aim to suppress the Latino vote through
intimidation and any means necessary to tilt the electoral process in
favor of his political allies,” he added.

Cecilia Castellano, a candidate for state House District 80, said she
was served a search warrant for her phone just after 6 a.m. on the
same day as the others. Medina is working on Castellano's campaign.

“I was still asleep and I was woken up by my doorbell and then a
hard knock,” she told NBC News later. “I went to the front [door]
and I have these flashlights flashing into my home.”

The officer shared a copy of the search warrant with Castellano and
left with her work phone.

Castellano said she felt the search was political intimidation, adding
that she’d been told two other people who had volunteered for her
campaign were been served warrants. She said she’s never helped
people to register to vote or vote by mail, and wasn’t sure for what
she was being investigated.

NINE ARMED OFFICERS AT THE DOOR

Up early as usual to water her plants, Martinez answered a knock at
her door at 6 a.m. and in walked a group of armed men and women with
police badges and riot shields and a search warrant, she told NBC
News.

Still in her nightgown, Martinez asked to change clothes. Instead, she
said she was forced to sit in her dining room answering questions
while the agents rummaged for four hours through just about everything
in her two-bedroom home. Two of the officers stood guard over her.

“They searched everything. My underwear, my brassieres, my
nightgowns, everything,” said Martinez, a 35-year LULAC member.
“They went into my garage. They opened up my car. They went through
my whole car, my whole garage, my refrigerator, my kitchen cabinets,
everything.”

At the news conference, Martinez said that for about half an hour she
was made to stand outside her home, still in her nightgown, where
neighbors could see, while the officers searched her dining area.

She said they would not tell her what they were looking for, and
questioned her for four hours, asking her about Manuel Medina and when
she joined LULAC.

They left with her appointment book, cellphone, laptop, blank voter
registration cards and her certification for completing a voter
registration course.

At the news conference, Martinez said nine people had shown up at her
door to execute the search warrant. She said her family asked her to
stop her volunteer work with LULAC, as well as any voter registration
efforts, because they're afraid she'll go to jail.

"I grew up on the west side of San Antonio. My dad had two grocery
stores and he taught us the right to vote," said Martinez, a San
Antonio native. She added she had five brothers who served in the
armed forces, including one who was killed in Vietnam and earned the
Silver Star. Martinez is a commander with the American Legion.

"They're trying to stop us from registering voters, and helping,
especially the seniors," she said.

"If I don't go out there, and their voter registration is expired,
some of them are in wheelchairs. They don't have a way to be going to
the elections office" to get registration forms, Martinez said.

Mary Ann Obregon, mayor of Dilley, about 71 miles south of San
Antonio, said her dogs' barking alerted her to two officers who showed
up at her home and demanded her phone when she went outside. She said
on Monday she wasn't shown a search warrant until after they followed
her in while she retrieved her phone.

After they left, "I got very emotional," she said. "I was crying."

_[SUZANNE GAMBOA is a reporter for NBC Latino._

_JANE C. TIMM is a senior reporter for NBC News.]_
 

* voter suppression
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* Latino Voters
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* texas
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* San Antonio
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* Uvalde
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* GOP
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* Republican Party
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* LULAC
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* League of United Latin American Citizens
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* Immigrants
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* immigrant voters
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* Mexican Americans
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* Racism
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* Ken Paxton
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