By
Nick Mordowanec

Staff Writer

The Texas National Guard is being encouraged by some social media users to be more violent in response to migrants attempting to enter the United States illegally.

Illegal immigration has risen under President Joe Biden’s watch and continues to divide communities around the country, notably border states and cities with sanctuary status.

Videos taken Thursday on the U.S.-Mexico border in El Paso, Texas, showed a throng of migrants, described by on-scene reporters as hundreds of individuals of different nationalities, causing a “riot” and using force to try to overpower soldiers.

The incident occurred simultaneously as Texas waits and sees if it can enforce its own immigration laws, including arrests and deportation, through legislation known as Senate Bill 4 (S.B. 4). The legislation previously approved by state lawmakers continues to be litigated in appeals courts and as high as the U.S. Supreme Court.

Total border crossings exceeded 988,900 individuals between October and December, following a record-setting number of 2.4 million migrant encounters at the southern border in fiscal 2023—up from approximately 1.7 million in 2021.

Newsweek reached out to the Texas Department of Public Safety and other officials via email for comment.

“The TX National Guard & Dept. of Public Safety quickly regained control & are redoubling the razor wire barriers,” Texas Governor Greg Abbott wrote on X, formerly Twitter, following the border incident. “DPS is instructed to arrest every illegal immigrant involved for criminal trespass & destruction of property.”

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, described the scene as “chilling.”

“This is the result of the Biden Administration refusing to secure our border and protect America,” he wrote on X.

El Paso Migrants — Immigrants wait for transport and processing after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border on March 13 in El Paso, Texas. The Texas National Guard is being encouraged by some social media users to be more violent in…

John Moore/Getty Images

Mexican photojournalist J. Omar Ornelas, who lives on the northern border of Latin America, posted a different-angled video on X of the scene in El Paso—showing migrants purportedly from Africa, Central America, Colombia and Venezuela breaching concertina wire to get to the larger border wall.

Charlie Kirk, founder and president of the conservative organization Turning Point USA, wrote on X that having a national border means individuals have to protect it.

“Ultimately, having a border means being willing to have armed men at the border willing to use force to stop those attempting to cross it,” Kirk wrote. “If you aren’t willing to do that, then your border is fake — anyone who wants it badly enough can just force their way in. The world is calling Biden’s bluff.”

In February, Representative Morgan Luttrell, a Texas Republican, introduced the Defend Our Borders from Armed Invaders Act in the U.S. House, authorizing the National Guard to escalate force as necessary to repel an armed individual attempting to illegally enter the U.S. through Mexico.

A spokesperson for the congressman told Newsweek via email on Friday that the legislation applies only to those migrants carrying lethal weapons. The bill currently awaits committee mark-up.

“This border crisis is a full-on invasion, and the Biden Administration continues to recklessly turn a blind eye to the ongoing danger this presents,” Luttrell, a 14-year U.S. Navy veteran, told Newsweek. “I fully support Governor Abbott’s and the Texas Guard’s efforts to secure our border.”

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Abbott’s words, meanwhile, sparked some impassioned criticism on social media.

“Lethal force required,” one X user wrote in response to Abbott.

Another X user wrote: “If citizens did that to law-enforcement, they would be tased or shot, and they’d be lucky to be arrested. It’s time to deal harshly with invaders, Governor. We have sonic and millimeter wave crowd-control weapons. It’s time to use them.”

Podcaster and U.S. military veteran Wayne DuPree described the scene on X as an “invasion [that] should be dealt with accordingly,” adding that refugees don’t assault border agents.

“What good are guns at the border if we aren’t going to use them?” political commentator and Donald Trump supporter Gunther Eagleman asked on X.

“An unarmed American female veteran was shot to death at near point-blank range on Jan 6 because a federal officer considered her a threat for invading a public building,” wrote political commentator Julie Kelly. “Hey @LindseyGrahamSC where are your shoot to kill orders for these invaders?”

Update 03/22/24, 11:30 a.m. ET: This article was updated with comment from Luttrell.

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Asia

How a national security threat label has reignited Indonesia’s LGBTQ debate

Indonesia last October classified the “spread of LGBTQ culture” as one of the country’s non-military threats. A series of developments thrust the provision into the public eye this month, sparking a debate.

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SINGAPORE: For more than eight months, a provision tucked away in an Indonesian presidential regulation on national defence drew little public attention.

In an appendix to Presidential Regulation No. 111/2025 on the General National Defence Policy signed in October last year, the government classified the “spread of LGBTQ culture” as one of the country’s non-military threats.

The clause, referring to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and queer culture, appeared alongside a range of other threats deemed capable of affecting national resilience. They included illegal trafficking, natural resource theft, terrorism, atheism and radicalism.

A presidential regulation is a legally binding regulation published in the State Gazette, while General National Defence Policy documents are highly technical and usually attract little public attention outside government and defence circles.

But a series of developments thrust the provision into the public eye this month, sparking a debate on the place of LGBTQ issues in state policy and the extent to which social issues should be framed within Indonesia’s defence strategy.

The issue quickly spread beyond social media into mainstream Indonesian media with national outlets including Antara, Kumparan, and Tempo examining the regulation and prompting public responses from senior government officials.

Some observers and activists say the clause could heighten discrimination against LGBTQ individuals in society, even as Indonesian ministers have defended the regulation while saying the government has no intention of curtailing the fundamental rights of citizens.

“As Indonesian citizens, LGBTQ people are entitled to education, employment, healthcare and other public services without restrictions, segregation or discrimination,” Indonesia’s Human Rights Minister Natalius Pigai told CNA in a phone interview.

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Indonesia’s Human Rights Minister Natalius Pigai. (Photo courtesy of Human Rights Ministry)

But he added that Indonesian society is not ready to accept the LGBTQ community, even as the state remains obliged to respect, protect and fulfil every citizen’s rights to education, employment, healthcare and public services.

“The time has not yet come to formally recognise them as an official group because society is not yet ready to accept them,” he said.

HOW THE CLAUSE CAME TO PUBLIC ATTENTION

While it remains unclear what first drew widespread attention to the provision, it resurfaced amid a series of developments involving LGBTQ issues. One was a Pride Month-themed social media post in mid-June by Suara Mahasiswa, a student publication at the University of Indonesia.

The post had led to a heated online debate, with critics arguing it was inconsistent with Indonesia’s religious and social norms. They questioned why it invoked the Pancasila national ideology to defend the LGBTQ community. Pancasila comprises five principles: Belief in one God, civilised humanity, national unity, democracy and social justice.

The backlash prompted the university to publicly distance itself from the post and launch an internal review.

Then in late June, the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) said it was preparing an academic paper and a draft bill to criminalise LGBTQ-related conduct for Parliament’s National Legislation Programme.

MUI deputy chairman Muhammad Cholil Nafis argued that moral appeals alone were no longer sufficient to curb what he described as the growing activities and campaign surrounding LGBTQ culture.

“If there are no legal penalties at all, it eventually becomes normal. We should not normalise it. Punishment helps people understand that it is not normal,” he said.

“Deviant activities, such as same-sex parties, are now increasingly being displayed openly in public without any sense of shame,” he added.

Scrutiny then shifted to the new regulation that had previously gone largely unnoticed.

The belated attention came as no surprise to Agus Wahyudi, head of the Inter-Religious Studies Programme at Gadjah Mada University (UGM) in Yogyakarta.

Documents such as the General National Defence Policy typically circulate within government bureaucracy and rarely become the subject of public debate, he said.

But a provision can take on political significance when a series of events – in this case, the Pride Month-themed social media post and the MUI’s planned bill – draws the public’s notice, said Agus.

“What changed was not necessarily the policy itself, but the public attention it attracted,” Agus said.

WHY WAS IT PLACED IN A NATIONAL DEFENCE DOCUMENT?

Asked whether the presidential regulation represented the first national policy to explicitly mention LGBTQ, human rights lawyer Asfinawati said Indonesia’s 2008 Pornography Law referred to “lesbian” and “homosexual” acts in its explanatory notes to a provision banning the production, distribution and sale of pornographic material.

It defined what the law described as “deviant sexual intercourse” for the purposes of pornography offences, rather than creating a standalone offence based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

Presidential Regulation No. 111/2025 goes further by classifying the “spread of LGBTQ culture” itself as a non-military threat, argued Asfinawati, the former chair of the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation.

“This regulation no longer links it to sexual conduct. Simply having a particular sexual orientation or gender identity is placed within a threat framework,” she said.

Experts have questioned whether a national defence framework was an appropriate instrument for addressing issues such as sexual orientation and gender identity.

In principle, national defence should focus on military threats, said Tangguh Chairil, a lecturer in security studies at the Department of International Relations at Binus University, Jakarta.

Indonesia, however, classifies threats into three categories: Military, non-military and hybrid. As a result, issues beyond the traditional defence sphere are increasingly viewed as national security issues.

“Because the definition is so broad, almost anything can be treated as a national security threat,” Tangguh told CNA.

Classifying LGBTQ culture as a non-military threat under a defence framework means the issue may be treated as a security concern requiring state attention and resources, he added.

“Issues that have been successfully securitised tend to receive greater attention than others,” he said.

Yusril Ihza Mahendra, Coordinating Minister for Legal Affairs, Human Rights, Immigration, and Corrections, told news outlet Tempo on Jul 9 that “non-military threat” was used to categorise risks against national resilience.

In the socio-cultural context, “resilience” refers to values, ethics, character of the younger generation, families, digital space, and social cohesion, he said.

“What the government perceives as a threat is the campaign, propaganda, and dissemination of LGBT behaviour aimed at altering the values that align with the nation’s culture and morality,” he added.

Indonesia’s Chief Minister for Law and Human Rights, Yusril Ihza Mahendra, speaks as Australia’s Minister for Home Affairs, Tony Burke, listens during a press conference following their meeting in Jakarta, Indonesia, December 3, 2024. (REUTERS/Willy Kurniawan)

Asfinawati said the regulation cannot serve as the legal basis for introducing new criminal provisions or for regional governments to impose criminal sanctions unless authorised by law.

Under Indonesian law, a person’s sexual orientation as well as consensual same-sex relations between adults are not, by themselves, criminal offences. The exception is Aceh province, which implements Islamic crimina

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