Embraced by Donald Trump during his presidential campaign, The Remembrance Project (TRP) is an anti-immigrant group that attempts to exploit deaths of Americans involving undocumented immigrants for political gain and to further demonize immigrants. TRP’s founder, Maria Espinoza, depicts immigrants as invaders and criminals, has aligned herself with extremists, and even once cited a neo-Nazi website.
About
- The Remembrance Project was founded by Houston-based Maria Espinoza and her husband, Tim Lyng, in 2009. It claims to be “a voice for those killed by illegal aliens.”
- Espinoza built the organization by traveling the country, attending trials of of undocumented immigrants charged with the deaths of American citizens in an attempt to cultivate relationships with the victims’ families. The parents of children killed by undocumented immigrants would later be referred to as “angel” moms and dads. TRP soon began displaying pictures of victims on “Stolen Lives Quilts” that were displayed at political and immigration rallies.
- Espinoza has routinely attacked immigrants on social media and in media interviews which attracted the attention of a number of groups in the anti-immigrant movement who approved of her message and tactics and began forming alliances. Today, TRP claims to have “state directors” in about 20 states. Many of these figures are longtime anti-immigrant activists such as Robin Hvidston, the head of the Southern California-based anti-immigrant group We the People Rising.
- Espinoza also made inroads with elected officials through a nationwide “Stolen Lives Quilt” tour in 2012, but it wasn’t until 2015 that her organization enjoyed a national spotlight, thanks to an endorsement by Donald Trump.
- Trump invited TRP activists displaying the Stolen Lives Quilt on stage at a number of his campaign rallies and also attended a TRP conference in Wasington, D.C.
- Espinoza attempted to capitalize on her newfound publicity by launching a Congressional run in Texas in 2016, but failed to win the Republican primary.
- A Trump victory prompted Espinoza to move TRP headquarters to Washington, D.C., where she claimed the organization would be supporting a new Trump Administration program called the Victims of Illegal Crime Engagement (VOICE). Like many of Trump’s immigration policies, the VOICE program originated with the anti-immigrant movement and specifically Espinoza, who claimed Trump was the only elected official to embrace the program.
- In mid-2017, Politico published an article featuring quotes from a number of “angel families” criticizing TRP and Maria Espinoza for not doing enough to support them. One former TRP member told Politico, “We were used, abused and exploited, and what’s worse is that my son was used, abused and exploited and is still being used, abused and exploited.” “Angel parents” went on to form a splinter group from TRP named Advocates for Victims of Illegal Alien Crime (AVIAC).
- Espinoza’s work has been praised by key leaders in the anti-immigrant movement including Mark Krikorian of CIS, who called Espinoza “indefatigable” in 2015 and claimed that TRP “for years has been the only forum for people like this to tell their stories of Americans killed because of lax immigration policies.”
Anti-immigrant Views
- In a 2014 Facebook post, Espinoza claimed, “Child molestation and rape are very numerous in this illegal alien demographic!”
- Espinoza claimed in a 2015 Buzzfeed interview that her organization is not “anti-immigrant,” but said, “We are against illegal aliens trespassing upon our soil.”
- In 2012, Espinoza was published in the far-right Social Contract Press, an anti-immigrant journal launched by white nationalist John Tanton, the founder of the modern-day anti-immigrant movement. In her piece, Espinoza wrote, “We must demand justice for American citizens, not ‘social justice’ for illegals. Insist that our elected officials remember that ‘We, the People,’ not the illegal aliens, are their constituents. And that the racism perpetrated by illegal invaders upon Americans of all ethnic backgrounds is real.”
- In the same piece, she wrote, “No one is immune to the illegal who drives wildly drunk, or the wanna-be gang-banger who needs to machete innocent citizens to gain entry and respect into the Latino or other gangs. We have uncovered the fact that Americans are under assault, a fact under-reported by the press, and unconnected by our elected leaders at all levels of government. Sanctuary cities, unsecured communities, human trafficking, molestations of our children, are all part of the vernacular of this disease that illegal immigration speaks, and must be addressed now!”
- When a conservative campus group at the University of Texas attempted to hold a “Catch an Illegal Alien Day,” Espinoza praised the group on social media.
- A year later, Espinoza was on the front cover of The Social Contract holding the Stolen Lives Quilt with the Contract’s editor, white nationalist Wayne Lutton. Lutton was a longtime member of the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC) and wrote for a number of white supremacist and Holocaust denial publications.
- Espinoza spoke at the annual Writers Workshop put on by the Social Contract Press in 2013.
- Espinoza has also attended FAIR’s annual Hold Their Feet to the Fire event in Washington, D.C., on multiple occasions.
- TRP has accepted over $155,000 in funding from U.S. Inc., Tanton’s umbrella organization.
- A 2013 post on the official TRP website cited The Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi website. The title of the article TRP cited was, “Family Furious as Illegal Alien Let Out of Jail to Kill White People.”
- According to The New Yorker, the TRP website once declared, “Pro-amnesty special interests have spent millions on spreading the lie that the legalization of undocumented aliens is somehow good for America and American families.”
Anti-immigrant Activity
- TRP leader Maria Espinoza has promoted the debunked claim that 25 Americans are killed by undocumented immigrants every day. Depicting immigrants as criminals is a key talking point for the organization.
- TRP is one of the main anti-immigrant organizations fighting against so-called “sanctuary cities” in the United States. In 2015, after the San Francisco shooting death of Kathryn Steinle by an undocumented immigrant, Espinoza first called for a boycott of the city. She then travelled there for a memorial with other anti-immigrant activists including Rick Oltman, a former FAIR employee and speaker at gatherings of the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC). The press event focused on blaming San Francisco’s sanctuary policy for Steinle’s death.
- In a recent interview, Espinoza criticized elected officials in “sanctuary” locales, stating, “Use the laws that are on the books to actually prosecute these offenders, the sanctuary city mayors, sanctuary state governors, and all of these municipalities.”