The Texas National Guard has the power to stop migrants at the border
AUSTIN, Texas — Texas Governor Greg Abbott, in an executive order Thursday, ordered Texas National Guard soldiers and Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) soldiers to stop migrants entering Texas without legal authorization and send them back to the southern border.
The two-term Republican governor said he took the action because of what he called the Biden administration’s inability to control soaring illegal immigration from Mexico. However, US Customs and Border Protection said that in May federal authorities processed nearly 200,000 migrants for deportation in the southwestern United States.
Abbott and federal authorities have noted that a higher than usual number of migrants are heading to the United States. The governor blamed the administration’s plan to end the Trump-era policy called Title 42, which turned away asylum seekers on the grounds it would help curb the spread of COVID-19.
Abbott said in a statement that the administration’s intention to lift the policy helped spur the rise in crossings.
“The cartels have grown emboldened and enriched by President Biden’s open border policies, smuggling in record numbers of people, weapons and deadly drugs like fentanyl,” Abbott said. In his executive order, Abbott said the cartels view Biden’s immigration policies as “la invitación” or “the invitation” to cross the border without permission.
Abbott touted the $4 billion Operation Lone Star which sent about 10,000 National Guard troops to the border on extended deployments and bolstered the presence of DPS troops. Texas is also erecting fences on plots of land where landowners have given permission as a countermeasure to Biden’s decision to halt construction of the border wall pushed by former President Donald Trump.
As part of Operation Lone Star, soldiers and local law enforcement, with the assistance of the National Guard, arrested migrants on charges including trespassing as a means of detaining them under state law without usurping the authority of federal immigration officials.
In his executive order, Abbott said he had the authority under his emergency powers to order the Guard and DPS to apprehend unauthorized migrants even if they have not violated the law. of State.
In the latest Customs and Border Protection press release citing border crossing statistics, the agency chief disputed any suggestion that the administration has taken an “open border” approach.
“Current U.S. border restrictions have not changed: single adults and families encountered at the southwest border will continue to be deported, where applicable, under Title 42,” Commissioner Chris Magnus said. . “Our message to those who would attempt to enter the United States illegally remains the same: do not make the dangerous journey only to be removed.”
The agency said that in May, 100,699 people were deported at the border under the Title 42 policy. Another 90,650 were turned back to cross under other provisions of federal law, the agency said. CBP.
U.S. Representative Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso, called Abbott’s latest move an election stunt.
“It’s one thing to say, ‘I want to use the power and the authority that the public has given me to make things better,'” Escobar said. “But it’s a whole other thing to use migrants as a prop, to use the National Guard as a political plaything, and to use valuable resources to try to get re-elected and position yourself to run for president. in 2024. Because that’s what’s really happening here.”
On Wednesday, the Texas Tribune and ProPublica reported that the US Department of Justice was investigating possible civil rights abuses in Operation Lone Star. The report cites letters from the DPS and the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) that acknowledged the federal investigation.
The TDCJ letter says the Justice Department questioned whether “differential and unlawful detention conditions based on their perceived or actual race or national origin” were in place for migrants accused of violating the law of state and held in Texas correctional facilities.
Contributor: Martha Pskowski, El Paso Times
USA Today
