Who is Maureen Galindo? Democrat calls for prison for “American Zionists”
Texas Democratic congressional candidate Maureen Galindo has said she would turn a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center into a “prison for American Zionists” if she won.
Galindo, who placed first in the March Democratic primary for Texas’ 35th Congressional District, is facing Bexar County Sheriff’s Deputy Johnny Garcia in a runoff election this month.
Writing on Instagram last week, Galindo said: “When Maureen gets into Congress, she’ll write legislation so that all Zionism and support of Zionism is undoubtedly Anti-Semitic, since it’s Zionists harming the Semites. She’ll turn Karnes ICE Detention Center into a prison for American Zionists and former ICE officers for human trafficking. (It will also be a castration processing center for pedophiles which will probably be most of the Zionists).”
The post has been criticized as antisemitic on both sides of the political aisle, including by New York’s Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who called for people to vote for Garcia.
“This is absolutely disgusting,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on X. “This bigoted garbage and antisemitism should be nowhere near our politics.”
Galindo doubled down on her comments on Monday, saying in a video: “When I say that I want billionaire Zionists in prison, that does not mean I want Jews in internment camps. So why am I getting a whole bunch of death threats and MAGA insults?”
She added: “I don’t care what religion you are. If you are a Zionist, meaning that you believe you’re just entitled to land or someone’s just entitled to land based off of religious beliefs, and that you’ll kill all of the Semites for it, then yeah I think that you’re a danger to humanity and belong in prison, especially if you have the political and economic resources to make that happen.”
Galindo said she had been receiving death threats following her Instagram post. She blamed the journalist Michael Karlis, who wrote about the post in the Texas newspaper, The San Antonio Current.
Karlis’ post on X, which has been viewed more than 7.3 million times, said: “TX-35 Democratic candidate Maureen Galindo says she will convert ICE detention center in Karnes County into an internment camp for ‘American Zionists.'”
Galindo responded: “There’s a connection between these death threats I’m getting and San Antonio Current’s inflammatory language.”
Several Democrats have alleged that a super PAC with ties to the Republicans is funding more extreme candidates in an effort to create weaker general election opponents and help the GOP retain control of the House, according to The New York Times.
Ocasio-Cortez wrote on X about Galindo: “The donors behind the Republican super PAC funding her should be exposed.”
This is a developing story. More to follow.
