Written Testimony of Bob Libal
Consultant, US Program, Human Rights Watch
Submitted to the Texas State Legislature
Senate Finance Committee
Hearing on Appropriations for the Biennium Regarding Article V: Public Safety and Criminal Justice
February 9, 2023
Appropriation of State Funds to Operation Lone Star Has Led to Injuries and Deaths of US Citizens and Migrants, Violated Non-Discrimination Rights, and Suppressed Freedom of Association and Expression
My name is Bob Libal. I work with the US Program of Human Rights Watch, based in Austin, Texas. On behalf of Human Rights Watch, I thank the Texas Senate Finance Committee for hearing testimony today on appropriations for the biennium related to Article V — Public Safety and Criminal Justice — and for the opportunity to submit this written testimony on the impact of appropriating funds to Operation Lone Star.
Human Rights Watch is a non-profit, independent organization that investigates allegations of human rights violations in more than 90 countries around the world, including the United States. We document human rights violations, issue detailed reports, and advocate for changes in law, policy, and practice to prevent and remedy human rights abuses.
Since its inception in 2021, we have investigated the impact of Texas’ $4.4 billion border law enforcement program called Operation Lone Star.[1] We have found the program, while most notably failing to reach its stated aim to “deny Mexican Cartels and other smugglers the ability to move drugs and people into Texas,”[2] has led to injuries and deaths, has consistently violated the rights of migrants and US citizens, and has suppressed freedoms of association and expression.
Operation Lone Star uses billions of dollars to fund the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) and the Texas Military to patrol the Texas-Mexico border, provides grants to local law enforcement agencies, and commandeers state prisons from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) to use for the jailing and imprisonment of people arrested and prosecuted under the Operation.[3]
Human Rights Watch respectfully asks this Committee, as it contemplates approving additional appropriations of Texas taxpayer dollars to Operation Lone Star, to consider the injuries, deaths, racial discrimination, abusive detention conditions, and chilling effect on freedoms of association and expression caused by Operation Lone Star. We urge the Committee to deny additional funding to Operation Lone Star and consider making significant funding cuts to this harmful and unproductive operation.
Operation Lone Star Has Led to Physical Injuries and Deaths
Significant injuries and loss of life for migrants and US citizens---including law enforcement and military personnel---can be attributed to Operation Lone Star. According to a complaint by the ACLU and Texas Civil Rights Project, the first 16 months of Operation Lone Star saw at least 30 people die and 71 injuries in high-speed vehicle pursuits.[4] Vehicle pursuits have increased dramatically since Operation Lone Star began, resulting in physical injury and deaths of migrants, law enforcement personnel, and civilian US citizens. In just the first 9 months of Operation Lone Star, DPS initiated 1,046 vehicle pursuits. [5] High speed vehicle pursuits are contrary to the policing best practices restricting their use adopted by many local, state, and national law enforcement agencies throughout the United States — including US Customs and Border Protection.[6]
As of October 2022, at least ten Texas National Guard service personnel have died while deployed under Operation Lone Star. These deaths have included five deaths attributed to suicide, one to drowning while attempting to rescue migrants, two to accidental shootings, one to a motorcycle accident, and one to a blood clot that a servicemember developed while deployed during a heat wave.[7] Anthony Salas, a Texas Department of Public Safety special agent, died while riding on a truck deployed during a nighttime operation under Operation Lone Star.[8]
Through these tragic and unnecessary deaths, in exacerbating a failed three-decade-old federal policy known as “prevention through deterrence,” Operation Lone Star has not slowed migration but has instead strengthened illicit actors who profit from the heightened fears of migrants and the reduced opportunities for people to request asylum in the United States, which is their right under US law.[9] Moreover, criminal cartels have profited from Operation Lone Star because their profits increase when migrants must attempt to enter the US by traveling through remote and deadly terrain.[10] The Trump and Biden administrations’ ineffective federal deterrence policies have been worsened by Operation Lonestar, and have contributed to the appalling deaths in recent years.[11] According to US government data reported by CBS news, a record 853 people died crossing the border in fiscal year 2022.[12]
Operation Lone Star is Racially Discriminatory and Deprives People of Liberty in Abusive Conditions
Operation Lone Star violates the right to be free from racial discrimination[13] and the right to seek asylum under US[14] and international law[15] by employing a separate and unequal state criminal justice system to target migrants (including asylum seekers) and US citizens near the Texas border for arrest, criminal prosecution, and imprisonment.[16] In two separate complaints, several Texas-based civil rights organizations analyzed 484 arrests under Operation Lone Star and concluded the arrests involved “severe racial disparities and clear indications of profiling based on race and national origin.”[17] According to media sources, the Operation raises sufficient concerns about possible violations of US non-discrimination laws that it is currently under investigation by the US Department of Justice.[18]
Operation Lone Star has led to over-policing in Texas communities along the border, resulting in dramatic increases in traffic stops and vehicle pursuits. According to an analysis by NBC News, border communities saw a doubling of the number of state troopers between 2019-2020 and 2021. In primarily Latino border communities, traffic stops rose 92% in that time period.[19]
Operation Lone Star has aggressively used selective enforcement of the misdemeanor offense of criminal trespass to justify the arrest and detention of thousands of alleged migrants in a newly created segregated criminal legal system with separate dockets, public defender assignments, jails, and booking facilities.[20] Simply put, people not perceived as migrants do not face the same criminal penalties for the same actions.[21] The program also charges people accused of transporting migrants from border communities with human smuggling.
The significant increase in arrests has overwhelmed state and local courts, jails, and prisons. In testimony before the Texas House of Representatives, Megan LaVoie, Administrative Director for the Texas Office of Court Administration testified that "There were 192 misdemeanor cases filed in Kinney County during the last five years, 35 in the fiscal year 2020, but more than 4,100 individuals have been arrested in Kinney County alone."[22]
These prosecutions have led to an increase in people held pre-trial detention to the point that Texas converted two state prisons in Edinburg and Dilley into detention centers operated by TDCJ where incarcerated people have reported conditions including inadequate food and lack of legal access.[23] Migrants and US citizens have reported being jailed for up to one month before charges are even filed,[24] as well as for weeks and months of pretrial detention for misdemeanor charges and delayed access to counsel.[25] Migrants and US citizens have described substandard food and inadequate or nonexistent health care, including mental health care, while in Texas jails and prisons.[26]
Operation Lone Star Impedes Freedom of Association and Expression
As a part of Operation Lone Star, Texas has launched investigations[27] into nongovernmental organizations that are operating to protect basic rights.
For example, on December 13, 2022, Governor Abbott sent a letter to Texas Attorney General Kenneth Paxton urging him to open an investigation into organizations providing legal and humanitarian assistance to immigrants, and alleging, without providing any evidence, that such groups were “unlawfully orchestrating” border crossings.[28] On December 15, Texas Attorney General Paxton announced that he had opened an investigation into groups providing such legal and humanitarian assistance to immigrants.[29]
These investigations pose a serious threat to freedoms of association and expression. These rights are protected under constitutional law and under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a treaty to which the United States is a party.[30] This treaty is binding on state governments.
Investigations and other efforts to target civic groups are familiar tactics elsewhere in the world. Human Rights Watch has investigated laws and policies attempting to suppress civic groups in countries such as Egypt,[31] Hungary,[32] and Russia,[33] as well as some governments’ misguided attempts to block migration by criminalizing nongovernmental groups providing lifesaving aid to migrants, such as in Greece[34] and Italy.[35] The attempts in these and other countries to instill fear and curtail lawful activities of civic groups have suppressed freedom of speech and association while increasing the risks migrants face.
Operation Lone Star has been a painful failure for the human beings that have died as a result of the program and for the communities that have been disserved and abused during its existence. Texas can do better.
Thank you for considering these issues as this Committee contemplates approving additional appropriations of Texas taxpayer dollars to Operation Lone Star.
[1] Human Rights Watch, “Texas Targeting Migrants,” November 22, 2021, https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/11/22/us-texas-targeting-migrants.
[2] Office of Texas Governor Greg Abbott, “Governor Abbott, DPS Launch ‘Operation Lone Star’ To Address Crisis at Southern Border,” March 6, 2021, https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/governor-abbott-dps-launch-operation-lone-star-to-address-crisis-at-southern-border (visited February 6, 2023). See also James Barragan, “Migrant Encounters at the Border are Higher Today Than They Were Before Gov. Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star Began,” Texas Tribune, https://www.texastribune.org/2022/09/28/greg-abbott-border-migrants/ (noting that “The number of migrant encounters at the Texas-Mexico border has climbed from 109,456 in March 2021, the month the mission began, to 116,976 in August — a slower rate of growth than at other parts of the border but a failure of Abbott’s office’s stated desire to “stop this revolving door and deter others considering entering illegally.”).
[3] Neena Satija, Jasper Scherer, “Two Years and $4.4 Billion in, Here's What we Know About Abbott's Operation Lone Star Border Crackdown,” Houston Chronicle, January 26, 2023.
[4] ACLU, et. al, Letter to Merrick Garland, et al, Texas Migrant Arrest Program under “Operation Lone Star”—Urgent Need for Investigation into Race and National Origin Discrimination by Texas Agencies, December 15, 2021, https://www.aclutx.org/sites/default/files/field_documents/ols_trespass_arrest_title_vi_complaint.pdf
[5] ACLU, et. al, Letter to Merrick Garland, et al, Texas Migrant Arrest Program under “Operation Lone Star”—Urgent Need for Investigation into Race and National Origin Discrimination by Texas Agencies, December 15, 2021, https://www.aclutx.org/sites/default/files/field_documents/ols_trespass_arrest_title_vi_complaint.pdf
[6] US Customs and Border Protection, “CBP Updates Emergency Driving and Vehicular Pursuits Directive,” January 11, 2023, https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/national-media-release/cbp-updates-emergency-driving-and-vehicular-pursuits-directive.
[7] Davis Winkie and Jamies Barragan, “Another National Guard Soldier Working Operation Lone Star Dies by Suspected Suicide,” The Texas Tribune, October 4, 2022, https://www.texastribune.org/2022/10/04/texas-national-guard-suicide-operation-lone-star/.
[8] Allie Morris and Diane Solis, “Death of DPS agent at Texas-Mexico border was preventable, experts say,” Dallas Morning News, January 26, 2023, https://www.dallasnews.com/news/2023/01/26/experts-death-of-dps-agent-at-texas-mexico-border-was-preventable/.
[9] Human Rights Watch, “US: Reject Texas Border Militarization,” November 17, 2022, https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/11/17/us-reject-texas-border-militarization; Tyler Mattiace and Vicki B. Gaubeca, “Biden Expands Trump-era Border Restrictions Once Again,” Human Rights Watch, January 1, 2023, https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/01/05/biden-expands-trump-era-border-restrictions-once-again. See also 8 U.S. Code § 1158(a), “Authority to Apply for Asylum,” https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1158.
[10] Ari Sawyer, “50 Migrants Found Dead in Texas Shows Flawed Approach in US,” Human Rights Watch, June 29, 2022, https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/06/29/50-migrants-found-dead-texas-shows-flawed-approach-us.
[11] Jessica Wolf, “Dying in the Desert: How U.S. Border Policies Contribute to Migrant Mortality, UCLA Newsroom, December 17, 2021, https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/how-dehydration-leads-to-migrant-deaths-in-desert
[12] Camilo Montoya-Galvez, “At least 853 migrants died crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in past 12 months — a record high,” CBS News, October 28, 2022, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/migrant-deaths-crossing-us-mexico-border-2022-record-high/.
[13] Arrested migrants and US citizens caught up in Operation Lone Star are sent into a shadow criminal legal system that violates US obligations under international human rights law prohibiting racial discrimination. Human Rights Watch / ACLU, “Joint Submission Regarding the United States’ Record Under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination,” August 8, 2022, https://www.hrw.org/report/2022/08/08/racial-discrimination-united-states/human-rights-watch/aclu-joint-submission#_ftn186.
[14] See 8 U.S. Code § 1158(a), “Authority to Apply for Asylum,” https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1158.
[15] Operation Lone Star also violates US obligations under international refugee law, which the US is bound by due to its ratification of the 1967 Refugee Protocol. Article 31(1) of the 1951 Refugee Convention states, “The Contracting States shall not impose penalties, on account of their illegal entry or presence, on refugees who, coming directly from a territory where their life or freedom was threatened in the sense of Article 1, enter or are present in their territory without authorization, provided they present themselves without delay to the authorities and show good cause for their illegal entry or presence.” The protections of article 31 have been interpreted to include asylum seekers (those whose claims have not yet been adjudicated) because it cannot be determined at the point of entry whether the person qualifies as a refugee or not.
[16] American Civil Liberties Union—Texas et. al., “Texas Migrant Arrest Program under ‘Operation Lone Star’—Urgent Need for Investigation into Race and National Origin Discrimination by Texas Agencies,” December 15, 2021, https://www.aclutx.org/sites/default/files/field_documents/ols_trespass_arrest_title_vi_complaint.pdf; American Civil Liberties Union--Texas et. al., "Texas Migrant Arrest Program under ‘Operation Lone Star’—Continued Urgent Need for Investigation into Race and National Origin Discrimination,” February 23, 2022, https://www.aclutx.org/sites/default/files/operation_lone_star_title_vi_supplemental_complaint.pdf; American Civil Liberties Union et. al., “Re: Texas Migrant Arrest Program under ‘Operation Lone Star’—Continued Urgent Need for Investigation into Race and National Origin Discrimination by Texas Agencies,” April 7, 2022, https://www.aclutx.org/sites/default/files/ols_supplemental_complaint_4.7.22.pdf.
[17] See American Civil Liberties Union—Texas et. al., “Texas Migrant Arrest Program under ‘Operation Lone Star’—Urgent Need for Investigation into Race and National Origin Discrimination by Texas Agencies,” December 15, 2021, https://www.aclutx.org/sites/default/files/field_documents/ols_trespass_arrest_title_vi_complaint.pdf; American Civil Liberties Union--Texas et. al., "Texas Migrant Arrest Program under ‘Operation Lone Star’—Continued Urgent Need for Investigation into Race and National Origin Discrimination,” February 23, 2022, https://www.aclutx.org/sites/default/files/operation_lone_star_title_vi_supplemental_complaint.pdf.
[18] Perla Trevizo, “Justice Department is Investigating Texas’ Operation Lone Star for Alleged Civil Rights Violations,” Texas Tribune, July 6, 2022, https://www.texastribune.org/2022/07/06/operation-lone-star-doj-investigation-abbott/.
[19]Suzanne Gamboa and Joe Murphy, In Texas, resentment builds as border crackdown ensnares local drivers, NBC News, August 21, 2022, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/texas-lone-star-latinos-citations-border-abbott-rcna42022
[20] American Civil Liberties Union—Texas et. al., “Texas Migrant Arrest Program under ‘Operation Lone Star’—Urgent Need for Investigation into Race and National Origin Discrimination by Texas Agencies,” December 15, 2021, https://www.aclutx.org/sites/default/files/field_documents/ols_trespass_arrest_title_vi_complaint.pdf. See also, “Inside Operation Lone Star,” New York Times, May 19, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/19/podcasts/the-daily/texas-mexico-border-greg-abbott.html (accessed July 21, 2022); Letter from Raquel Aldana, Professor of Law, UC Davis School of Law et al., to Merrick Garland, Attorney General, US Department of Justice et al., January 21, 2022, https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/crsj/webinar/february-2022/law-professor-letter-operation-lone-star.pdf.
[21] American Civil Liberties Union—Texas et. al., “Texas Migrant Arrest Program under ‘Operation Lone Star’—Urgent Need for Investigation into Race and National Origin Discrimination by Texas Agencies,” December 15, 2021, https://www.aclutx.org/sites/default/files/field_documents/ols_trespass_arrest_title_vi_complaint.pdf.
[22] Robert Arnold, “Operation Lone Star Border Arrests Creating Large Caseloads in Rural County Courts,” KPRC2 Investigates, November 3, 2022, https://www.click2houston.com/news/investigates/2022/11/04/operation-lone-star-border-related-arrests-creating-large-caseloads-in-rural-county-courts/.
[23] Maria Ramos Pacheco, Detainees under Abbott’s Operation Lone Star in Texas lack proper legal access, Dallas Morning News, May 12, 2022, https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2022/05/12/detainees-under-abbotts-operation-lone-star-in-texas-lack-proper-legal-access/
[24] ACLU, et. al, Letter to Merrick Garland, et al, Texas Migrant Arrest Program under “Operation Lone Star”—Urgent Need for Investigation into Race and National Origin Discrimination by Texas Agencies, December 15, 2021, https://www.aclutx.org/sites/default/files/field_documents/ols_trespass_arrest_title_vi_complaint.pdf
[25]IBID
[26] ACLU, et. al. Letter to Merrick Garland, et al, Texas Migrant Arrest Program under “Operation Lone Star”—Continued Urgent Need for Investigation into Race and National Origin Discrimination, February 23, 2022 https://www.aclutx.org/sites/default/files/operation_lone_star_title_vi_supplemental_complaint.pdf
[27] Texas Governor Greg Abbott, Twitter post, December 14, 2022 https://twitter.com/GregAbbott_TX/status/1603069659531677696.
[28] Human Rights Watch, “Texas Investigation of Civic Groups Dangerous for Rights,” December 20, 2022, https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/12/20/texas-investigation-civic-groups-dangerous-rights.
[29] Texas Attorney General Kenneth Paxton, “Paxton Investigates Texas Bar Foundation Fund Recipients for Aiding and Abetting the Invasion of Illegal Aliens,” December 14, 2022, https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/news/releases/paxton-investigates-texas-bar-foundation-fund-recipients-aiding-and-abetting-invasion-illegal-aliens.
[30] See International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 19, ratified by the United States in 1992. See also Human Rights Watch, “Texas Investigation of Civic Groups Dangerous for Rights,” December 20, 2022, https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/12/20/texas-investigation-civic-groups-dangerous-rights.
[31] Human Rights Watch, “Egypt: New NGO Law Renews Draconian Restrictions,” July 24, 2019, https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/07/24/egypt-new-ngo-law-renews-draconian-restrictions.
[32] Human Rights Watch, “Hungary Tries to Stop Asylum Seekers with New Law,” June 22, 2018, https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/06/22/hungary-tries-stop-asylum-seekers-new-law.
[33] Human Rights Watch, “Russia: New Restrictions for ‘Foreign Agents,’” December 1, 2022 https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/12/01/russia-new-restrictions-foreign-agents.
[34] Eva Cossé, “A Suffocating Environment for Greek Civil Society,” Human Rights Watch, June 24, 2022 https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/06/24/suffocating-environment-greek-civil-society.
[35] Giulia Tranchina, “Italy's Criminalisation of Migrant Rescue: the Luventa Case,” Human Rights Watch, December 13, 2022 https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/12/13/italys-criminalisation-migrant-rescue-luventa-case.
