Border Patrol agents take a group of migrants seeking U.S. asylum into custody under the International Bridge in Eagle Pass last fall. The border city has since become the site of a showdown between Gov. Greg Abbott and the White House over immigration enforcement. Credit: Shutterstock / Vic Hinterlang

Editor’s note: This story was updated to correct the day Paul Faye was arrested.

The FBI arrested a Tennessee man Monday on an illegal weapons charge after he stated he wanted to shoot migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border to stop an “invasion,” according to a criminal complaint obtained by the Current.

The arrest came amid warnings by Texas Democrats and extremism experts that Gov. Greg Abbott’s rhetoric likening the current surge in border crossings an “invasion” could incite violence. The GOP governor’s standoff with the White House over immigration enforcement prompted a “Take Our Border Back” rally near Eagle Pass over the weekend that drew far-right protesters from around the country.

According to a federal complaint, the FBI arrested Paul Faye in Nashville after he bought an illegal suppressor for an AK-47-style weapon from an undercover agent. He’s now charged with possession of unregistered firearm or silencer regulated by the National Firearms Act, which is punishable by a fine of up to $10,000 and 10 years in prison.

The FBI began investigating Faye last March after authorities learned he’d been in contact with another man arrested for planning to “go to war with the feds,” the complaint states. At one point during the nearly year-long investigation, Faye told an undercover agent that “the patriots are going to rise up because we are being invaded. We are being invaded,” according to the document.

Faye told the undercover agent that he and militia members from Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee were planning to head to Eagle Pass on Jan. 20 to carry out their attack, the criminal complaint states. Faye said his role was to be a sniper and kill migrants, adding that his talent was “sending rounds down range,” according to the allegations against him.

There’s no indication Faye traveled with the “Take Our Border Back” caravan or was recently in Eagle Pass, according to the federal paperwork.

Faye showed the undercover agent a cache of military-grade weapons, none of which were documented in the National Firearm Registration and Transfer Record, according to the complaint. The suspect also allegedly told the agent he planned to make landmines out of tannerite, an easily accessible explosive.

The revelation of Faye’s arrest comes mere days after Texas Democrats including San Antonio U.S. Reps. Joaquin Castro and Greg Casar held press calls warning about the dangers of Abbott’s use of “invasion rhetoric” as the convoy of far-right protesters descended on Eagle Pass.

“Gov. Abbott understands by now that when he calls this an invasion, that he’s putting a target on people’s back,” Castro said during a press call Sunday. “And it’s not just migrants and asylum seekers, but also Latinos in Texas.”

Abbott’s office was unavailable for comment Wednesday morning on Faye’s arrest.

It’s not the first time advocates have accused the governor of stoking violence with his shrill immigration rhetoric.

In 2019, a gunman shot and killed 23 shoppers, most of them Latinos, at an El Paso Walmart. In his manifesto, the shooter said he carried out the massacre to prevent white people from being replaced by migrant invaders.

Later, Abbott said “mistakes were made” when his campaign sent out a letter full of anti-immigrant rhetoric the day before the shooting. The letter asked supporters to make donations to address a “crisis at our southern border” in the form of illegal immigration. “If we’re going to DEFEND Texas, we’ll need to take matters into our own hands,” it stated.  

Indeed, Faye is a proponent of the “Great Replacement Theory,” according to the feds’ criminal complaint. The widely debunked racist theory posits that left-wing factions inside the government are trying to replace the nation’s white population for political gain.

The same alleged conspiracy was also a talking point of several speakers at a rally last Thursday in the Central Texas town of Dripping Springs staged by organizers of the “Take Our Border Back” convoy.

“The mainstreaming of anti-immigrant hatred is animating some of the most dangerous elements in our society: white supremacists, neo-Nazi and antigovernment extremists,” Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, told the Current last week.

Beirich continued: “It isn’t helping that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is taking on the federal government in ways that harken back to the Civil War.”

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This article appears in Feb 7-20, 2024.

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,...