Claim:

Bo French, a Republican candidate for Texas’ oil and gas regulatory body, said he wanted to deport Native Americans.

Rating:

True

Context

In an emailed statement, a spokesperson for French said he didn’t mean all Native Americans, but rather only the ones in the photograph he shared with his comment on X.

In February 2026, a rumor spread that Bo French, a Republican candidate for the Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates oil and gas, wanted to deport Native Americans — people indigenous to the U.S. 

Several social media posts made the claim, including on Facebook, where one user said French had called for the deportation of “third world savages” including Native Americans (archived):

The same claim also appeared on X and Instagram. Some posts linked to a Feb. 10, 2026, article in Texas Monthly (archived), which included a line that read, “One of French’s favorite phrases is ‘third world savages’—which he has applied to Afghan asylum seekers, Muslims, and even Native Americans, who he also wants deported.”

It is true that French called for the deportation of Native Americans. He did so in an Oct. 10, 2025, post on X (archived):

Since we are going to denaturalize and deport all the third world savages who hate our country, I am calling for adding these third world savages, who we conquered, then bizarrely let have a nation inside our nation, to the list.

His post included a photograph of what appeared to be three women and one girl wearing seemingly traditional clothes, raising their middle fingers to Mount Rushmore, where sculptor Gutzon Borglum carved the faces of U.S. Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. 

An image search showed the earliest instance of this image being shared online was a 2024 Facebook post with the caption “The only reason Natives visit is to do this,” suggesting a protest against the history of European colonization in the United States, which resulted in the mass and systematic killing of indigenous peoples.

Asked to explain his X post, a spokesperson for the French campaign said he did not mean to say the U.S. should deport all Native Americans, but only those in the photograph.

“Mr. French never called for the complete deportation of Native Americans,” the spokesperson said in an email. “If you look at his actual tweet from last year, he was specifically talking about the four people in the picture who obviously hate America.” 

We replied to ask which country he thought these four Native Americans should be deported to and will update this report should we receive a response.

French also has repeatedly called for the denaturalization of U.S. citizens. He described (archived) Texas Tribune reporter Carlos Noguera Ramos, who wrote a story about French, as a “soon to be deported journalist.” Noguera Ramos’ bio on the Texas Monthly website says he is Puerto Rican, which makes him a U.S. citizen.

For further reading, Snopes previously reported that French once spread the claim that voting machines in Tarrant County, Texas, where he was the Republican Party chair, flipped votes for Trump into votes for former Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris. He retracted his claim shortly thereafter.