Sarah Palin, Ted Nugent stop in Dripping Springs to rally for Take our Border Back convoy

DRIPPING SPRINGS — Joining the pep rally for the cross-country convoy protesting federal immigration policy Thursday evening, former Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin and conservative rocker Ted Nugent took straight aim at the Democratic President Biden administration.

"It's unconscionable. It is treasonous what our own federal government is doing to us in actually sanctioning an invasion, a foreign invasion, of our country across that border," Palin, a former governor of Alaska, told about 1,000 people in an outdoor venue in Dripping Springs operated by a local craft distillery. "Every state now is a border state. Every state is affected."

Nugent, a Detroit native nicknamed the "Motor City madman" for his his in-your-face music style and loud guitar playing, took it up well past a single notch. Without mentioning his name, Nugent used a vulgar scatological reference to describe Biden and then said of the president: "This devil scum snake thinks he's the commander in chief of the United States of America."

But the tone used by the two biggest names at the rally for the Take Our Border Back convoy that launched Monday and will end Saturday near Eagle Pass was actually a contrast from the lesser-known speakers who took the stage outside the One Shot Distillery and Brewery and those ralllygoers who had agreed to be interviewed.

Organizers took pains to describe the journey and the stops along the way as peaceful, often invoking religious themes laced with heavy doses of patriotism.

Charles Crites said he heard about plans for a convoy from the East Coast to Texas to protest the Biden administration's immigration and border policies last week, and decided to get a head start on the drive.

Rather than waiting for the queue of passenger vehicles and motor homes to arrive from Virginia Beach, Va., to his home state of Florida on the first leg of the journey Monday, Crites and a friend got into a white Mercedes Benz van and headed for the Lone Star State.

"I'm an old Ron Paul Republican," the 81-year-old Crites said as he waited in a parklike setting on the outskirts of Dripping Springs, about 25 miles southwest of Austin, for a rally at a nearby brewery and distillery Thursday afternoon. "So, my thinking is, obey the Constitution. Obey the law."

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Crites, who was among a throng people amid an array of pro-Donald Trump and anti-Joe Biden flags and banners, is concerned by the massive surge in unauthorized crossings from Mexico into Texas over the past three years. And like many of the others waiting with him for the rally, he expects the convoy organized by Take Our Border Back to remain nonconfrontational though its journey that will end near the Texas border city of Eagle Pass on Saturday. Other segments of the convoy will host rallies in San Ysidro, Calif., and Yuma, Ariz., on Saturday.

"We came out because we could, and to see a part of this beautiful country," Crites said.

About 2 miles south on RM 12 in a recreational vehicle park, convoy co-organizer Craig Hudgins said the parade of vehicles arrived in Dripping Spring around 11 p.m. Wednesday. Many in the group spent the first part of Thursday touring the area on their own. Vehicles, many with Trump flags and stickers, could be seen along Dripping Springs' town center.

Residents driving by honked their horns, either in support or in opposition, at the visitors.

More: Gov. Greg Abbott says Biden is shirking his oath to protect border, leaving it to Texas

Hudgins described himself as a former Marine Corps major, a former airline pilot and a devout Catholic. He said he has been active in other pro-Trump events and conservative causes and pushed back against warnings that convoy participants are coming to Texas to provoke a showdown, either with immigrants or with supporters of President Biden's approach to immigration.

He made no apology for calling the waves of migrants arriving at the Texas-Mexico border, many from Central and South America, "an invasion" — a highly charged word that has been linked to perpetrators of violence, including the deadly August 3, 2019, mass shooting in El Paso where the gunman targeted people who he believed to be Hispanic.

"We are not here to upset people's lives," Hudgins said during an interview while standing outside his RV adorned with a giant American flag decal, Bible verses and patriotic slogans. "We want to stay out of the way of the National Guard."

More: As border battle brews between Texas and U.S., tiny Eagle Pass braces for its next conflict

Asked about the anti-immigrant rhetoric some have espoused on social media and other platforms discussing the convoy, Hudgins took a conciliatory tone.

"We have an obligation to care for these immigrants who've come here," he said, but cautioned that many of them are likely to be disappointed in the country they are seeking to adopt.

Another organizer, Robert Agee, pushed back at one narrative that cast the convoy as a vigilante mob that would seek to secure the U.S.-Mexico border by force. But he tacitly acknowledged that some with hardline immigration views ascribe to such thinking.

"I get it. There are some people who want to do that," Agee said from the stage. "But I tell you what: We're not going to do that. We're going to have a prayer rally."

Pete Chambers, a Texas resident and one-time Green Beret who promoted the convoy on conservative media outlets, said in a brief interview after he his remarks thathe was not discouraged by reports that convoy participation was closer to 50 or 60 vehicles than the tens of thousands some organizers had predicted.

"Who cares?" he said, arguing that the depth of commitment of those making the drives and joining the rallies outweighed the raw numbers.

Although the expected rematch between Trump and Biden in the presidential race later this year was on full display, given the buttons, hats and campaign regalia worn and carried by rallygoers, the former president's name was scarcely mentioned on stage by the organizers or by Nugent and Palin.

Biden was not granted such anonymity. Nugent, a self-avowed Second Amendment hardliner spent more time talking about gun rights and referred to Palin as "a babe." He warned that even though Texas has some of the gun-friendlier laws in the nation, unnamed political figures are still seeking to roll them back.

"That's the tip of the spear," Nugent said. "If another man thinks he can tell me where, if, how, or what with I can defend my life, that is a bad, bad evil man on the side of Joe Biden."

Some GOP leaders from Texas, including Fort Worth-area U.S. Rep. Roger Williams and Rep. Keith Self of McKinney, have expressed support for the convoy. Gov. Greg Abbott, whose hard-line border policies — including installing razor wire along the Rio Grande, deploying a border barrier of floating buoys on the river and building unconnected portions of border wall — have intensified a standoff between the state and federal government over border security, thrusting the governor into the national spotlight, has been less vocal about the convoy.

The Texas leg of the convoy is scheduled to end Saturday at the Cornerstone Children's Ranch in Quemado, 17 miles north of Eagle Pass.

On Sunday, Abbott along with 14 of his fellow Republican governors, will meet with reporters at Eagle Pass' Shelby Park, which has been transformed into a staging ground for Operation Lone Star, the governor's $11 billion border security initiative.

In Dripping Springs, at the gathering place near One Shot Distillery and Brewery, Rudy Martinez said that he sympathizes with migrants who come to the U.S. seeking work and better lives. But he strongly objects to them coming into Texas without legal authorization.

"There's issues that need to be fixed," said Martinez, a San Antonio native who operates a vending business out of his black 2019 Ford F-150 rich in Trump regalia and anti-Biden T-shirts, flags and baseball caps. His largest flag read, "Even my dog hates Biden."

Martinez, who said he drove to Virginia Beach to join the convoy from the start and sold items along the way, said he voted for Trump in the past two presidential elections and will eagerly do so again.

"Hopefully, we can make a change with a new president coming in," he said.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Take Our Border Back convoy to make stop in Dripping Springs, Texas