A day after he went out of his way to characterize the five victims of a Friday night shooting in Texas as “illegal immigrants,” Gov. Greg Abbott (R) issued a short statement on the matter, with a representative expressing “regret if the information was incorrect.”
“We’ve since learned that at least one of the victims may have been in the United States legally,” said Renae Eze, a spokesman for Abbott. “We regret if the information was incorrect and detracted from the important goal of finding and arresting the criminal.”
Eze attributed the inaccurate information to “federal officials.” She did not address the widespread backlash to Abbott’s rhetoric, which drew responses from the likes of Parkland parent Fred Guttenberg, who called the governor “a low life asshole” in a tweet, adding, “On behalf of those like my daughter who are victims of gun violence, FUCK YOU!!!”
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Texas Democratic Party Chair Gilberto Hinojosa also issued a statement on the matter, saying, “There is no limit to the depravity of Greg Abbott and his Texas Republican cronies.” He accused Abbott of using the shooting “to fear-monger and lie about migrants and the victims’ immigration status.”
The source of the governor’s new information was unclear, but his statement was issued after immigrant rights activist Carlos Eduardo Espina shared to Twitter a photo of one of the victims’ identification cards, proving she was a permanent resident of the United States.
“I guess to Greg Abbott, anyone who is from another country is an ‘ilegal immigrant’ [sic],” Espina tweeted. “Shameful.”
The identification card appeared to prove that Diana Velazquez Alvarado, 21, had been a U.S. permanent resident since December 2021. The immigration status of the other four victims—Sonia Guzman, 25; Juliza Molina Rivera, 31; Jose Jonathan Casarez, 18; and Daniel Enrique Laso, 9—remained unclear on Monday. All five were originally from Honduras.
San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers told reporters on Sunday that whether the victims were in the country illegally was irrelevant to him.
“My heart is with this [9]-year-old little boy,” he said. “I don’t care if he was here legally. I don’t care if he was here illegally. He was in my county. Five people died in my county, and that is where my heart is—in my county, protecting my people to the best of our ability.”
In his initial Sunday statement, Abbott also referred to the suspected gunman, Francisco Oropesa, as someone “who is in this country illegally” as he announced a $50,000 reward for information leading to his capture.
Oropesa, 38, has a track record of entering the U.S. illegally, and had previously been deported four separate times, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said Monday.
He was first ordered removed from the U.S. by an immigration judge in March 2009. He then reentered the country, and was apprehended and deported several more times in September 2009, January 2012, and July 2016, according to the agency.
A handful of conservative media outlets first reported on Sunday, incorrectly, that Oropeza had been deported three or five times. The correct figure was first reported Monday by ABC News, with other outlets, including CNN and Reuters, later confirming it.
His current immigration status was not immediately clear.
Oropesa remained at large on Monday night, with more than 250 law enforcement officers from a dozen agencies hunting for him. The authorities have offered $80,000 in reward money for information leading to his apprehension. He is considered armed and dangerous.
He is believed to have been shooting a gun in his front yard on Friday when neighbors approached him and asked him to stop, because their baby was inside sleeping. Oropesa allegedly went into his home, retrieved an AR-15 rifle, and walked over to the neighbors’ house, where the mass shooting unfolded around 11:30 p.m.
Authorities have said that two of the women who died were shielding a 6-week-old boy and a 3-year-old girl, who survived.
Officials last provided an update on the investigation on Sunday. “We do not know where he is,” James Smith, the FBI’s special agent in charge of the Houston field office, said at a news conference. “We do not have any tips right now as to where he may be. Right now, we have zero leads.”
