Scenes from the “Take Our Border Back” Rally in San Diego, California.

On February 3, I attended a “Take Our Border Back Southern Border Convoy Peaceful Assembly Prayer and Three-State Rally” in San Ysidro Athletic Area Larsen Field, within sight of Tijuana, just to the south. Numerous speakers, many of them candidates for public office, talked about how the Biden administration and the Democrats, in the words of a banner held by rally-goers, “created the border crisis.

I came down to the border to do a reality check on what rally organizer Kim Yeater told The New York Post: “To the naysayers: We’re just ordinary citizens, farmers, ranchers, retired police officers. Not crazy conspiracy theorists. It will be a peaceful assembly of Americans of all political classes and all ethnicities. “ The San Ysidro rally, which was scheduled from 9 am to 11 am, was one of two that day: there would also be a rally in Yuma, Arizona later in the day. The convoy had also hit other cities along the border, including Eagle Pass, where the Texas Department of Public Safety had kicked out the Border Patrol and was continuing to lay concertina wire along the Rio Grande River, despite the Supreme Court ruling in favor of the Biden administration.

Yeater also told the Post that she was expecting 700,000 people to take part in the rally. I only saw 200-300 there, at most, making her claim seem maybe just a little ambitious. While I found out by just talking to people that there were plenty of ordinary people involved in the rally, with no one packing visible weapons, I also observed many of the speakers wading into conspiracy-theory territory.

I’ll have more details in coming days on what I saw, and what I overheard. I’ll also have some interviews with “just ordinary citizens” I talked to on the streets of San Ysidro. In the meantime, enjoy the pics!

From Left to Right: Dan Eaglhoff with his dog Barney, praying rally-goers, Kim Yeater and Scotty Saks speaking onstage, rally-goers arriving in San Yisidro