Nick Fuentes supporter and white supremacist Ali Jamal, right, participated in a Latinos United for Conservative Action protest outside Galileo Church in Fort Worth on Oct. 8. LUCA officials have issued a statement denouncing white supremacy and Nazi ideology, and said they have no knowledge of Jamal or “his associations,” even though he is pictured here with LUCA’s Advocacy Director Carlos Turcios. LUCA also declined to denounce anti-LGBTQ comments Turcios has made. (Photo via Steven Monacelli)

Steven Monacelli, a reporter for Texas Observer who covered the Black Lives Matter protests for Dallas Voice in the wake of the George Floyd murder in 2020, reported Oct. 10 that even though officials with Latinos United for Conservative Action (LUCA) have issued a statement denouncing Nazism, one of the men participating in LUCA’s Oct. 8 protest outside of Galileo Church in Fort Worth was Ali Jamal, a supporter of white supremacist and Nazi sympathizer Nick Fuentes.

Nick Fuentes, who is a Holocaust denier and who has openly fantasized about marrying a 16-year-old girl, was in Fort Worth over the weekend to meet with local GOP activists and party leaders.

Monacelli had reported earlier this week that the Nazis who protested outside Cathedral of Hope on Sunday morning, Oct. 8, and were then videoed at a Torchy’s Taco restaurant in Fort Worth, were also part of the LUCA protest at Galileo Church later on Sunday. He said he had gotten the info from a reliable source but issued a correction after receiving an email from LUCA leaders. The emails came from Melinda Rivera, melinda@lucalatinosunited.com.

Cathedral of Hope is working with Galileo Church to help transgender youth and their families travel outside of Texas to receive gender-affirming health care.

“One of the conservative groups that protested Galileo Church, LUCA, told me via email that they ‘strongly oppose everything that the Nazi symbol represents’ and they oppose the ideology of white supremacy. They demanded a retraction of my prior tweets, which I’ve done,” Monacelli noted on X.

But when Monacelli asked about Jamal’s participation in the protest at Galileo and a photo showing Jamal standing with LUCA’s advocacy director, Carlos Turcios, at that protest, LUCA refused to directly denounce Jamal or Fuentes.

He said they told him via email, “‘Please be advised that LUCA does not know Ali nor of his associations.’ When I asked specifically if they would condemn the hateful ideology promoted by Jamal and Fuentes like they did the Nazis, they said this: ‘We do not ascribe to guilt by association nor have any of our members in their personal life … . We cannot control who attends public protests nor will we condemn or allow you to condemn any of our members based on who they may be standing next to at any given time. If one of our members happens to be standing next to somebody at a public protest, that does not mean that our member affiliates themselves with that person or their beliefs, except for what is being protested at that moment when they were seen together. We do condemn anti semetisim [sic], hate speech or racism in any form.’”

Monacelli continued by saying that when he asked the LUCA officials specifically about anti-LGBTQ comments Turcios has made, they again refused comment. They “would not comment directly on Carlos Turcios calling LGBTQ supporters ‘pedos and groomers’ and calling for trans people to ‘lose their citizenship and be sent to Central America doing countryside labor.’ They simply said: ‘Please refer to my previous emails. At this point, I’m repeating myself. Thank you!’”

— Tammye Nash