By Suzanne Gamboa -
NBC News
Flags with the slogan 'Trump 2024' flew alongside Christian flags as a crowd converged on a rural Texas ranch to denounce President Joe Biden and those who have crossed into the United States from the nearby Rio Grande.
Many of those who arrived on Friday in the border city of Quemado for the Let's
take back our border call
They said they were meeting peacefully as Christians opposed to anarchy.
The artists, vendors, political signs and colorful clothing on the ground where they gathered contrasted with the barbed wire, camouflage uniforms and weaponry parked 20 miles south in the Eagle Pass section of the border.
The group arrived around 8:00 p.m. Friday night, local time, and entered a two-lane rural road, creating a long line of cars and recreational vehicles, owned or rented.
[The arrival of an anti-immigrant convoy sparks verbal confrontations with pro-immigrant activists]
Led by a man on horseback waving the Christian flag — a white cloth with a blue square and a red cross in the upper left corner — three commercial trucks and a couple of buses advanced one by one through the only open entrance to the land.
The convoy was initially announced as 700,000 trucks leaving Virginia to three points on the border, but that did not materialize: Images showed about 40 en route to Texas.
However, more people joined along the way: there were cars, recreational vehicles and trucks towing campers.
When they were near the southern border, the organizers assured that the convoy reached 200 vehicles.
NBC News could not independently confirm that number, but
noted at least 100.
Dorothy Richards, a 67-year-old retiree from New Braunfels, joined part of the convoy in Dripping Springs, Texas, near Austin, but arrived before the caravan.
The Take Back Our Border
organizers
held their event in Dripping Springs, at a whiskey distillery, where free pitchers of beer were handed out, according to Richards.
He was carrying a Texas flag on Friday, but swapped it for a sign supporting Texas Governor Greg Abbott in his confrontation with President Joe Biden over immigration.
"Biden had his chance," he said.
[An anti-immigrant convoy raises its voice and the first hearing to prosecute Mayorkas has already been scheduled]
"Governor Abbott & TX NG [National Guard] BORDER SECURITY," his sign read.
The Biden Administration and Abbott have clashed over immigration enforcement, as the Texas governor has sent migrants – who are allowed to wait for hearings within the country – to Democratic-run cities like Chicago and New York. , and has run its own law enforcement at the border.
A hearse that participated in the convoy said 'Trump 2024' on the front door and also the phrase: "Collecting Democratic votes one dead person at a time" on the side.SERGIO FLORES / AFP via Getty Images
Abbott is using the Texas National Guard and state police to detain irregular crossers into the United States and place barbed wire along the border.
Border Patrol agents have assured that some of the measures prevent them from doing their job.
Richards assured that the clash over immigration could lead to a civil war, but he believes it is necessary.
"What are we going to do? Should we stand aside and let [irregular immigration] happen?" he questioned.
The event might as well have been a Trump rally with flags, MAGA caps and hats, and even cardboard cutouts of the former president.
Some took it further with a hearse with 'Trump 2024' on the front door and "picking up Democratic votes one dead person at a time" written in capital letters on the side.
[Supreme Court allows Border Patrol to remove barbed fence installed by Texas on border]
Alma Arredondo-Lynch, 67, of Concan, Texas, wore a
Women for Trump
stone pin and a wide-brimmed hat as she walked the ranch grounds.
Friday afternoon's rain and lightning were pushed out by bright sunshine and warm temperatures on Saturday.
"I believe that if we do not have a border, we do not have sovereignty. And if we do not have sovereignty, we will not have civility," he said.
Like many others, he said he was not against people coming to the border, but that they should do so on a regular basis.
The gathering was mostly peaceful, except for clashes as a group of people, who said they belonged to the group 'Street Preachers', began protesting on Friday night with a megaphone, but were forced by the convoy to move to the other side of the street.
They held signs against the LGBTQ community and with Islamophobic phrases.
One of the convoy attendants near Quemado, Texas.
SERGIO FLORES / AFP via Getty Images
Organizers used their own megaphone to separate themselves from protesters and tell attendees they disagreed with the other group's views.
But some attendees did not distance themselves from the anti-immigrant rhetoric that has raised alarms and is used by Abbott, Trump and others.
The former president has said that migrants "are poisoning the blood of our country."
Abbott faced criticism when he claimed his state was not shooting people crossing the border irregularly because then Biden would charge state officials with "murder."
Doug Pagitt, pastor and executive director of
Vote Common Good
, was in Eagle Pass over the weekend also to counter claims by conservative and far-right groups that they constitute 'God's army,' as organizers described themselves, and support religious leaders who disagree with them or Abbott.
"A lot of people are here to say that the governor should not listen to federal law. That sounds a little like an insurrection," he said.