The words “No Islam” scrawled in black spray paint appeared on the walls of businesses in downtown Brownsville in mid-October, coming at a time when threats and crimes against Muslims in the United States are rising. A local blogger linked the Islamophobic scribblings to Genovevo Izaguirre, the pastor of Mision Divina, whom police have charged with five counts of graffiti.
As first reported on October 25 by El Rrun Rrun, a blog run by former Brownsville Herald journalist Juan Montoya, the Islamophobic graffiti started to appear on October 16, leading business owners who did not want to fan the flames of division in their community to file police reports. But when Brownsville police checked their expensive surveillance camera system, they came up empty-handed and told at least one complainant that the system had been down at the time of the offenses. It was only after El Rrun Rrun published surveillance photos from a local business owner’s camera that police arrested Izaguirre.
Mision Divina, where Izaguirre is pastor, is a small, primarily Latino church in downtown Brownsville not far from where the hateful graffiti appeared. Izaguirre describes himself as an “apostle” on Facebook, where he has posted anti-Islamic imagery, shared photos of Pride flags burning, called homosexuality an “abomination,” and made statements opposing the Brownsville LGBTQ Task Force.
“We don’t want an LGBTQ Task Force in Brownsville,” Izaguirre wrote. “Wake up Brownsville. We don’t want Homosexual teaching in our schools.”
Other posts from Izaguirre’s Facebook profile suggest he’s a political firebrand, intermingling anti-immigrant, anti-refugee, and pro-Trump rhetoric with quotes from scripture and fire-and-brimstone warnings of eternal damnation.
Izaguirre did not respond to requests for comment.
The anti-Muslim graffiti linked to Izaguirre isn’t the first time in recent months that someone has defaced property in downtown Brownsville. Back in June, a newly painted rainbow crosswalk meant to celebrate LGBTQ+ inclusion was vandalized with white paint. The police have yet to identify or arrest any suspects.
The City of Brownsville’s slow and quiet reaction to this spate of prejudiced vandalism stands in relief to the swift and dramatic arrest of Rebekah Lynn Hinojosa, a local organizer with the Rio Grande Valley’s local Sierra Club chapter who was charged with a Class B Misdemeanor in February 2022 for allegedly spray-painting an anti-SpaceX message on a mural funded by Elon Musk.
Unlike Izaguirre, who was allowed to hand himself over two weeks after his discriminatory compositions were first reported and only after a local blogger identified him as the perpetrator, four police officers barged into Hinojosa’s home just two days after the anti-Musk graffiti was discovered.
The Islamophobic vandalism in Brownsville comes at a time when anti-Muslim hate crimes are spiking across the country, up 182 percent from the previous year, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
“These messages have to be countered by civic leaders who unequivocally say how un-American and morally repugnant this kind of bigotry is,” said Professor Brian Levin, the director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University San Bernardino.
A spokesperson for the City of Brownsville declined to comment when asked if the city had a statement regarding the Islamophobic graffiti.
