{"id":309480,"date":"2025-10-17T01:23:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T01:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/309480\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T01:23:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T01:23:09","slug":"gov-abbott-to-send-national-guard-to-no-kings-protest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/309480\/","title":{"rendered":"Gov. Abbott to send National Guard to \u201cNo Kings\u201d protest"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sign up for The Brief<\/a>, The Texas Tribune\u2019s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. See our AI policy<\/a>, and give us feedback<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Gov. Greg Abbott activated the state\u2019s National Guard in Austin ahead of planned Saturday protests condemning aggressive immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n

The \u201cNo Kings\u201d protests will be taking place across the country to speak out against the Trump administration\u2019s mass deportation push, and the president \u201cthreatening to overtake elections; gutting health care, environmental protections, and education\u201d according to the organizers\u2019 website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Abbott, in a press release, said he\u2019s directing the Texas Department of Public Safety to activate the Texas National Guard because of a \u201cplanned antifa-linked demonstration.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cToday, I directed the Texas Department of Public Safety and Texas National Guard to deploy all necessary law enforcement officials and resources to ensure the safety of Austin residents,\u201d Abbott said. \u201cTexas will deter criminal mischief and work with local law enforcement to arrest anyone engaging in acts of violence or damaging property.\u201d<\/p>\n

Antifacism, also called antifa, is a leftist movement opposing far-right, racist and fascist groups. Abbott\u2019s statement didn\u2019t specify the connection between the planned protests and antifa. He also didn\u2019t say whether he planned to deploy the National Guard to other Texas cities where protests are planned, including Houston<\/a>, Lubbock<\/a> and McAllen<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Austin Mayor Kirk Watson clarified in\u00a0a statement<\/a>\u00a0later on Thursday that the National Guard would not be on the streets of Austin unless there was \u201cemergency need.\u201d\u00a0Watson\u2019s and Abbott\u2019s office did not respond to immediate questions on whether the National Guard would still be stationed near the protest before an emergency occurred.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Watson also condemned violent protests and expressed support for peaceful gatherings.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet me be clear: I don\u2019t condone the militarization of our streets,\u201d he said. \u201cI also don\u2019t condone unpeaceful acts that threaten people\u2019s health or safety, do damage to property, and disrupt the right of those who want to peacefully protest.\u201d<\/p>\n

The governor\u2019s move comes after Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy also claimed earlier this week that the protests are associated with antifascism<\/a>, which Trump has designated as a terrorist organization last month<\/a>, according to The Hill.<\/p>\n

Similar protests took place across the state in June<\/a> \u2014 from McAllen to Midland \u2014 and were largely peaceful. Abbott also deployed 5,000 National Guard<\/a> members to those protests to \u201censure peace & order.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump deployed the National Guard to Los Angeles<\/a> during No Kings protests there in June, without the consent of California Gov. Gavin Newsom. A federal judge later ruled that the president overstepped his authority by using federal military forces for domestic matters. <\/p>\n

Texas Democratic Party Chair Kendall Scudder said in a statement that Abbott is \u201cdoing everything he can to suck up to Donald Trump, including taking a page from Trump\u2019s authoritarian playbook, and intimidating people exercising their First Amendment right.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur cities are not warzones or military training grounds, and we do not need an unnecessary display of force at the expense of taxpayers on a peaceful protest,\u201d Scudder added. \u201cGreg Abbott wants to incite violence against the crowd and try to make you afraid to come out, exactly like a king or those protecting a king would.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ayden Runnels contributed to this story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune\u2019s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":309481,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[359,5026,50,7237,145271,67,132,68,156405],"class_list":{"0":"post-309480","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-austin","10":"tag-greg-abbott","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-protests","13":"tag-texas-national-guard","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-well-b-homepage"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115386895925142886","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/309481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}