Every week after cellphone customers throughout the U.S. reported a flurry of racist textual content messages, members of the Hispanic and LGBTQ communities at the moment are receiving textual content messages saying they’ve been chosen for deportation or to report back to a re-education camp, in accordance with a brand new assertion from the FBI.
The messages observe stories of African American and Black residents receiving racist texts within the days after the 2024 election that they had been chosen to “choose cotton on a plantation,” in accordance with the FBI. Cellphone customers in a minimum of 9 cities — New York, Atlanta, Charlotte, Raleigh, Houston, Huntsville, Texas, Los Angeles, Norfolk, Virginia, and Tuscaloosa, Alabama — reported receiving the messages.
The brand new message additionally embrace some emails, the FBI mentioned in its assertion.
TextNow, a cellular supplier that enables folks to create cellphone numbers totally free, mentioned final week it found “a number of” of its customers allegedly sending out racist textual content messages to cellphone numbers throughout the nation and that the service rapidly shut down the accounts.
The FBI has mentioned it’s involved with the Justice Division and different federal authorities on the matter.
Recipients of those messages embrace highschool and school college students.
“Though we now have not acquired stories of violent acts stemming from these offensive messages, we’re evaluating all reported incidents and interesting with the Division of Justice Civil Rights Division,” the FBI mentioned in its Friday assertion. “We’re additionally sharing info with our regulation enforcement companions, and neighborhood, academia, and religion leaders.”
Anybody who receives these messages — or any threats of violence — is inspired to report them to the FBI.
