El Paso Was Torn by Hate. It Still Chose Love.

What happened in that courtroom should inspire us all.

El Paso is my hometown.

It’s a border town where Texas, Mexico, and New Mexico blend together in the beautiful expanse of the Southwest. It's a crossroads of culture and community, where the food, the music, the language, and the people are stitched from both sides of the Rio Grande River. It’s also a proud military town, home to Fort Bliss, one of the largest military bases in the country, where service and sacrifice are part of daily life.

It’s the place that raised me, embraced me, shaped me. And it’s where my family still lives, including my aunt, who was in the Walmart that day in 2019 when hatred came to town armed with an assault rifle and a manifesto soaked in white supremacy.

I still remember the moment I got the call from my family. I remember reading the social media posts from my friends, who were scared and terrified. Then came the most challenging part for me, going to work. At the time, I was serving in the Trump administration. My job was to brief Vice President Mike Pence on the attack. That day, I also briefed Trump’s national security advisor. I had to sit there and walk him through the details, what we knew about the shooter, the victims, the motive. All while carrying the weight of knowing my hometown was shattered. My family traumatized. And knowing that the very rhetoric I’d heard in the White House echoed the ideology that fueled the killer’s rage.

The shooter wrote that he was stopping a “Hispanic invasion of Texas.” I read the manifesto as law enforcement got a hold of it before it hit the public eye. My stomach turned. My body went cold. Donald Trump had used those words. The “invasion” of our southern border. The “invasion” of our country. Others in the Republican Party echoed them. Over and over again.

And yet, some still hugged him.

Not the shooter, though even he, in a moment that stunned the courtroom years later, would be shown a level of compassion I’m not sure he deserved. I’m talking about Donald Trump. When he visited El Paso just days after the massacre, the town was torn on how to receive him. Some were angry. Some stayed home in protest. Others, survivors, grieving families, and some community leaders chose to meet him with civility. A few even offered a hug. Not because they supported him, but because they wanted him to understand something deeper. It was showing him who we really are. That Mexican culture, the culture I was raised in, believes in family, dignity, and compassion even for those who don’t show it in return.

I was asked if I wanted to be part of that trip. Pence, my boss at the time, knew I was grieving. My aunt’s life had been spared, but I was devastated for the place I still call home. I asked for Pence to go in Trump’s place. He’s a man who, for all our differences, I believed took his faith seriously. Someone who might show up with the humility and compassion the moment called for. But we both knew that was never going to happen. As much as I longed to be with my community in that moment of sorrow and strength, I bowed out. I couldn’t bring myself to participate in what I feared would become a political performance. And sadly, it did.

But El Paso rose above it then, and earlier this week, it did so again.

In a courtroom, nearly five years after that horrific day, the same community that was targeted for who we are showed the world once more what we’re made of. Yolanda Tinajero, the sister of Arturo Benavides, a beloved Army veteran and retired bus driver who was killed in the Walmart shooting, hugged the man who murdered her brother. She embraced the very person who stole her brother in the hope of showing him the love, resilience, and strength of the very culture he tried to destroy. Another family member of a different victim also asked to hug the shooter, an act of grace that echoed through the courtroom. A hug, not to absolve or forget, but to make sure he understood. That he didn’t win…That hate didn’t win. That this Mexican-American community, my community, is made of something he will never comprehend.

“If you would have come before to get to know our culture, you would have experienced what warm and good-hearted people us Hispanics are. We would have opened our doors to you to share a meal, breakfast, lunch or dinner–Mexican style. So, then, your ugly thoughts of us that have been instilled in you would have turned around,” Tinajero said during her victim impact statement.

When I reflect on that moment, I’m overwhelmed. As someone who served in a White House that looked the other way while white nationalism festered, I carry the guilt of proximity. I tried to speak up, to push back. Many of us in national security knew what was being unleashed.

And still, it continues.

Trump and others are still using this type of terminology today. In his second term, he has doubled down, issuing an executive order titled “Protecting the American People Against Invasion.” It’s only a matter of time before the next hate crime or mass shooting takes place.

I remember every single one of them that I worked on during my tenure as Homeland Security Advisor. And now, while the leadership of the very agencies that will respond to the next tragedy run around cosplaying in their latest absurd outfits and espousing their typical rhetoric, I sit here processing the moment that just happened in El Paso. Through its pain, El Paso stands as a reflection of something the rest of the country desperately needs: humanity.

I don’t know if I could’ve offered that hug to the shooter. I’m not sure I have that kind of grace. But I saw it happen in that courtroom, and it reminded me of who we are at our best.

Somos El Paso. We’re Americans. We are love. We are resilient. We are power. And we don’t fight hate by becoming it. We confront it, and in doing so, we rise above it.

So today, I ask you to sit with this moment. To reflect on the courage it takes to choose grace over vengeance. To consider what it means to embody love in the face of unimaginable pain. What would our country look like if we all led with that kind of strength?

El Paso showed us the way. It’s up to us to carry it forward.

Until next time,

Olivia