Jeffrey Hall was unequivocal about what he wanted.
“I want a white nation,” he once told the Los Angeles Times. “I don’t hide what I am, and I don’t water that down.”
An unemployed plumber who used to patrol the U.S.-Mexico border looking for illegal immigrants, Hall was a rising star among white supremacists.
He would often speak at rallies, promoting the goals of the National Socialist Movement, the largest neo-Nazi organization in the country, with 46 chapters in 20 states. In a YouTube video of a 2009 anti-immigration rally in Southern California, Hall, the National Socialist Movement’s regional director there, is seen holding a megaphone with a smiling Hitler emoji sticker on it as he proclaims the need for “white immigration” and a “pro-white” America.
But Hall’s rise in the movement ended abruptly. He died in May 2011, when he was shot at point-blank range while sleeping on his living room couch.