Republicans Hate Latino Voters

Latino Civil Rights Group Demands Inquiry Into Texas Voter Fraud Raids

A Latino civil rights group is asking the Department of Justice to open an investigation into a series of raids conducted on Latino voting activists and political operatives as part of a sprawling voter fraud inquiry by the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton.

The League of United Latin American Citizens, one of the nation’s oldest Latino civil rights organizations, said that many of those targeted were Democratic leaders and election volunteers, and that some were older residents in their 70s and 80s. Gabriel Rosales, the director of the group’s Texas chapter, said that officers conducting the raids took cellphones, computers and documents. He called the raids “alarming” and said they were an effort to suppress Latino voters.

At a news conference on Monday outside the attorney general’s offices in San Antonio, members of the group, known as LULAC, said they were filing a civil-rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice. Roland Gutierrez, a state senator, said he was requesting a State Senate investigation into the raids.

“You don’t go after our grandmothers,” Domingo Garcia, a LULAC leader, told reporters.

The raids were carried out in counties near San Antonio and in South Texas. In a statement last week, Mr. Paxton, a Republican, said they were part of an “ongoing election integrity investigation” that began two years ago to look into allegations of election fraud and vote harvesting. His office has said that it would not comment on the investigation because it is still underway.

That investigation is being carried out by a unit in Mr. Paxton’s office, the election integrity unit, that was created after former President Donald J. Trump began making false claims of fraud in the wake of the 2020 election, and Republican-led states sought to crack down on supposed voter crime. Experts have found that voter fraud remains rare.

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Lidia Martinez, an 87-year-old retired educator in San Antonio ...said she heard a knock on her door right before 6 a.m. on Tuesday. She thought that maybe a neighbor needed milk and eggs, she said, and she fastened her sleeping gown and opened the door.

Nine officers, seven of them men, some with guns in their holsters, then pushed open the door and marched past a living room wall decorated with crucifixes, she said.

“I got scared,” she recalled in an interview on Sunday, speaking in both English and Spanish. “They told me, ‘We have a warrant to search your house.’ I said, ‘Why?’ I felt harassed.”

Ms. Martinez said that the officers told her they came because she had filled out a report saying that older residents were not getting mail ballots. “Yes, I did,” she told them. For 35 years, Ms. Martinez has been a member of LULAC, the civil rights group, helping Latino residents stay engaged in politics. Much of her work has included instructing older residents and veterans on how to fill out voter registration cards.

“I go to a lot of senior events; I explain to them what they have to do,” she said. “I’ve been involved in politics all of my life.”

The officers said they were looking for voter cards that residents had filled out, she said.

“I told them, I don’t have them here,” she said.

One of the officers handed her a copy of the search warrant and ordered her to sit at her kitchen table. The warrant states that officers were looking for records, including “applications for ballot by mail, a list of voter banks and documents about elected officials and candidates.”

Two of the agents went to her bedroom and searched everywhere, “my underwear, my nightgown, everything, they went through everything,” Ms. Martinez recalled. They took her laptop, phone, planner and some documents.

Ms. Martinez said officers told her that a woman who lives in Frio County, an hour from her house, was using her return address for mail ballots. “They showed me her picture, and I said, I’ve never seen that person,” she said. “I don’t know who she is.”

The officers questioned her for about three hours, she said.

“They asked me about my entire life,” she said. They also asked her if she knew fellow LULAC members, Mr. Medina and area politicians. “I told them, ‘I haven’t committed any crimes,’” she said. Ms. Martinez has not been arrested or charged. Mr. Paxton’s office did not respond to a request for comment on Sunday.

Days after the raid, Ms. Martinez said she still felt shaken. But she said she remained committed to the cause.

“They wanted to intimidate me,” she said. “But this is important work.”