Nearly 9K Migrants Apprehended Under Texas Border Enforcement Programs

Texas law enforcement officers arrested nearly 9,000 migrants for violations of state law under Governor Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star. The effort focuses on the enforcement of Texas laws violated by migrants after they illegally crossed the border from Mexico.

The operation applies criminal consequences to migrants who choose to illegally cross the border into Texas. Since the inception of Operation Lone Star in March, law enforcement officers and authorized Texas National Guard soldiers arrested more than 8,800 migrants on state crimes.

“The National Guard and DPS have apprehended over 76,000 migrants and arrested over 8,800 who committed a state or federal crime, including smugglers and human traffickers, to crack down on illegal crossings of migrants coming from over 150 countries around the world,” Governor Abbott’s spokesman Renae Eze said in a written statement provided to Breitbart Texas. “While the Biden Administration refuses to do their job and ignores the pleas of border communities for help, Governor Abbott continues working with state and local partners to surge critical personnel and resources needed to secure the border and protect Texans.”

Some local law enforcement officials expressed gratitude at the state’s support in helping protect Texas living along the border. “Residents want protection, they want this to end,” Kinney County Sheriff Brad Coe said in an article published by the Texas Tribune. “[Migrants] are tearing up their livelihood, they’re tearing up their fences, driving off their hunters, and that’s our big industry here.”

A case in point, Cotulla Station Border Patrol agents in the Laredo Sector attempted to stop a driver of a stolen pickup truck. Please near the border report increasing numbers of stolen vehicles that are utilized by human smugglers to move their “cargo” into the United States interior.

The driver of the vehicle fled, crashing through a rancher’s fence while attempting to escape,” Chief Patrol Agent Matthew Hudak tweeted.

Despite the success in arresting nearly 9,000 migrants on charges of breaking state or federal law, the law enforcement operation is facing criticism from some media outlets and defense attorneys.

Alleged errors in legal paperwork led to the dismissal of more than two dozen cases, the Texas Tribune report claimed.

The Tribune wrote:

The dismissals came during Kinney County’s first court hearings for some of the hundreds of men who have been arrested in the rural border area under Abbott’s initiative, which he began in July in response to a rise in illegal border crossings. Many of the men whose charges were dropped had already spent more than two months in Texas prisons waiting to go before a judge.

“The fact they have been held for that long on charges that were deemed defective is really disgraceful,” Houston defense attorney Amrutha Jindal told the news outlet.

The Wall Street Journal added to the criticism of Abbott’s law enforcement operation. While the news outlet stated that just three percent of 1,500 arrests on trespassing charges since July ended in convictions, it ignores the fact that criminal charges frequently take months or up to a year to come to a conclusion.

The Texas Department of Public Safety recently released an update to the law enforcement operation. Some of the incidents reported by DPS officials include:

• On Oct. 30 in Starr County, a Trooper conducted a vehicle stop, in which the occupants bailed out. The driver was apprehend and four migrants were referred to the U.S. Border Patrol. The driver stated he was paid $150 per person to smuggle them to an unknown location.
• On Nov. 1 in Cameron County, a traffic stop of a vehicle resulted in the arrest of the driver for possession of a controlled substance and money laundering. A search of the vehicle revealed .12 ounces of cocaine, about 4.37 ounces of THC and $30,000 in cash.
• Also on Nov. 1 in Starr County, a Trooper saved a life when he stopped a vehicle that was driving at a high rate of speed. The driver was in distress and holding an infant with a blue skin tone. The Trooper used lifesaving measure to dislodge the object from the baby’s throat. Additional Troopers arrived to assist, and the infant was released to EMS for further medical evaluation.
• On Nov. 2 in Hidalgo County, a traffic stop was conducted on a vehicle that had an obscured temporary tag, a red and blue police-style light bar in the front grill and a siren in the engine compartment. The Trooper also saw the back storage compartment of the vehicle was covered in grass and dirt. U.S. Border Patrol was contacted and it was determined the driver was a known scout and in the country illegally. He was taken into custody by the U.S. Border Patrol.

“DPS has maintained a large presence along our southern border as part of OLS at the direction of Gov. Greg Abbott,” DPS Director, Colonel Steven McCraw said in a written statement. “We continue to make numerous arrests and apprehend suspects to keep Texas secure. We remain committed to keeping the people of Texas and their property safe and enforcing the law.”

To provide assistance to the small county governments that line the Texas-Mexico border, Governor Abbott and the Texas Legislature approved hundreds of millions of dollars to the operation. Abbott shifted more than $250 million from previously allocated state funds and the legislature dedicated $3 billion for border security measures, the Journal reported. The state also brought judges out of retirement to hear the increasing numbers of cases. State prosecutors have also been made available to local officials.

The WSJ also reported positive feedback from landowners in South and West Texas.

Arrests have occurred on the properties of landowners who have agreed to join the state’s efforts, including ranches and a rail yard where migrants often hide on trains from Mexico.

“We said ‘Yes, we want you to prosecute anyone you find on our property,’ that’s the whole point of private property,” said Diane Brenan, whose Pinto Ranch in Kinney County has been in her family for more than 100 years.

“President Biden’s reckless open border policies have created a crisis along our southern border, with a 61-year record-high number of illegal immigrants surging into our state,” the governor’s spokesman stated.”