The FBI said last week it is investigating a barrage of racist text messages sent to black people across the country after the election. On Friday, the agency said it had received reports that Latinx and LGBTQ people had also been targeted with similar threatening text messages.
“Some recipients reported being told they had been selected for deportation or to report to a reeducation camp,” the FBI said in a statement, adding that some messages were sent via email.
While the FBI says it has not received any reports of text messages leading to violent acts, the FBI says it is investigating all incidents and is working with the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.
Reports of black people receiving racist text messages began on the morning of November 6, hours after the presidential election was called for Donald Trump. The anonymous text messages used different wording but were similar in nature, telling people they had been “selected” to pick cotton on a plantation.
Some texts referred to the recipient’s name, and those who reported receiving these messages were as young as high school students. Several messages also referenced Trump’s election victory; his campaign has denounced the text messages and denied any connection to them.
Authorities in several states and federal agencies are investigating the origins of these text messages. Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said last Friday that the Louisiana Bureau of Investigations cyber team had traced a number of messages to a VPN in Poland, but the original source has still not been identified.
The FBI has not said whether it believes the offensive messages to LGBTQ and Latinx recipients came from the same source as the previously reported messages.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
