Mourners gather in 2019 a memorial for victims of the El Paso Walmart shooting. Wednesday marks the four-year anniversary of the tragedy, which claimed 23 lives. Credit: Wikimedia Commons / Ruperto Miller

The attorney who represented the gunman convicted of killing 23 people five at an El Paso Walmart five years ago now says his client’s motives were fueled President Donald Trump’s anti-immigration rhetoric, according to nonprofit newsroom El Paso Matters.

In August 2019, 21-year-old Patrick Crusius drove from his family home in Allen, Texas, to a Walmart in El Paso with a semi-automatic rifle and opened fire on the mostly Hispanic shoppers, some of whom were there back-to-school shopping. He committed the mass shooting after posting a racist screen online railing against a Hispanic “invasion” of Texas.

As Crusius prepares to be sentenced later this month, his defense attorney, Joe Spencer, isn’t mincing words about who inspired his client’s attack.

“He thought he had to stop the invasion because that’s what his president was telling him, which is just not rational,” Spencer

The attorney continued: “He thought, if he doesn’t do it, then nobody’s going to do it. He’s got to start.”

Spencer made similar comments to the New York Times this week.

Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric has only increased since his first term. Among other xenophobic and racist remarks, he’s told supporters that migrants are “animals” and “stone cold killers,” claimed they’re “poisoning the blood of our country” and have “bad genes” that predispose them to crime.

Lawmakers, including U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, a San Antonio Democrat, have long warned that both Trump and Gov. Greg Abbott’s escalating anti-immigrant rhetoric puts Latinos’ lives at risk.

Even so, the recent media reports are the first times members of Crusius’ legal team have publicly stated that Trump’s words played a role in his bloodthirsty attack.

“I absolutely believe that words matter, and especially someone who’s a … president of the United States,” Spencer told El Paso Matters. “When he makes a statement like that, he should be very careful of how it’s going to be received, not only by those of us that are rational, but by those of us that are not.”

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This article appears in Apr 2-15, 2025.

Michael Karlis is a multimedia journalist at the San Antonio Current, whose coverage in print and on social media focuses on local and state politics. He is a graduate of American University in Washington,...