An East Texas middle school principal was placed on administrative leave Friday after he allegedly opposed illegal immigration in a Facebook post last week.
William Dugat, an eighth-grade principal at Lufkin Middle School, remains on leave pending an investigation of his purported social media comments, according to the Lufkin Independent School District. Reportedly, Superintendent Lynn Torres placed Dugat on leave once district officials became aware of his alleged comments opposing illegal immigration.
“I worry about the USA looking like Mexico and South America with so many illegal aliens being welcomed to our country,” wrote Dugat, in part.
Apparently, the Facebook remark came in response to a local woman’s post in which she posed in a photograph with Texas Democrat Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke, the El Paso-based U.S. Representative who seeks to unseat incumbent U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) in the November 6 midterm election. On Thursday, O’Rourke made his latest round of campaign stops to woo voters in East Texas, a traditionally conservative stronghold.
Area news outlet KTRE reported they received screenshots of the Facebook thread on Sunday afternoon. Based on the context of the excerpted social media posts, the woman advocated for O’Rourke and supported his single payer Medicare for All platform.
In the purported online exchange, the O’Rourke supporter also fretted over the environment and her “children and grandchildren having clean water to drink.” Dugat commented as part of his post: “Guess we are doomed to have a dirty country either way.”
As of Monday, Dugat’s alleged remarks shown in the screenshots did not appear in the entire thread posted on Facebook. Thus, it remains unclear when they were removed.
Already, the Houston Chronicle reported Dugat’s purported concerns over illegal immigration as “racist.”
Lufkin Independent School District spokeswoman Sheila Adams told Breitbart Texas by email on Monday, “We were made aware of the post on Friday. We do not support or condone his actions or comments.” The spokeswoman added, “He was placed on administrative leave pending an investigation of the incident.”
We also reached out to Dugat for comment. As of press time, he did not respond.
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