“Operation Lone Star Stops Criminals at President Biden’s Open Border,” the subject line read, referring to the state’s controversial border initiative.
Abbott’s Friday news release lauded the state’s efforts to “secure the border; stop the smuggling of drugs, weapons, and people into Texas; and prevent, detect, and interdict transnational criminal behavior between ports of entry.” But immigrant rights advocates have condemned the Republican’s rhetoric and demanded an end to his “barbaric” treatment of migrants.
The Lone Star State has faced heightened scrutiny over its border clampdown in recent days, but Abbott has continued to brag about the thousands of migrants shipped from Texas to Democratic-controlled cities countrywide.
Since April 2022, Texas has bused some 29,000 migrants to New York City, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., according to the news release.
Yet while Abbott and other Republican lawmakers continue to roll out increasingly harsh measures at the border, critics have accused them of engaging in deadly acts of political theater.
Officials in Mexico reported this week that two bodies had been found in the Rio Grande. Although one of the corpses was discovered stuck in the buoys recently installed by Abbott, Texas officials claimed that the person had drowned upstream before floating into the barrier.
One victim was reportedly from Mexico while the other was Honduran. Still, Abbott has pushed back against claims that the buoys were to blame for one of the deaths.
“The Mexican government is flat-out wrong,” an Abbott spokesperson said in a statement, according to The Associated Press.
Meanwhile, Abbott has continued to cast blame on the Biden administration for not doing more to secure the southern border.
“Every individual who is apprehended or arrested and every ounce of drugs seized would have otherwise made their way into communities across Texas and the nation due to President Joe Biden's open border policies,” reads the governor's Friday news release.
The U.S. Justice Department filed a civil lawsuit against Texas and Abbott on July 24, arguing that installation of the buoys violated federal law.
Mexican authorities and human rights advocates have blasted the buoys for acting as a sort of cruel trap for migrants. News of the two bodies comes weeks after The Houston Chronicle published troubling allegations that state troopers were directed to push crossing immigrants, including children, back into the river. The report also alleges that a young pregnant woman who was enduring a miscarriage had got caught in the border’s razor wire.
In an internal email, a state trooper detailed concerns about how the line of buoys would force migrants attempting to cross the river into more dangerous areas, thereby increasing the likelihood of drownings. The buoys were introduced because they make it harder for people to either swim beneath or climb over them.
State Rep. Jessica González, a Dallas Democrat, is demanding that the governor remove the buoys, razor wire and other physical barriers from the river.
“We're calling on Governor Abbott to #EndTheDeathTraps at our border,” she tweeted Friday. “You can join us too. Take the actions below and demand DPS and Gov Abbott to #EndtheDeathTraps! #txlege.”
Another Democrat from Dallas, state Rep. Victoria Neave Criado, echoed that sentiment in a tweet from the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, which she chairs.We're calling on Governor Abbott to #EndTheDeathTraps at our border. You can join us too. Take the actions below and demand DPS and Gov Abbott to #EndtheDeathTraps! #txlege pic.twitter.com/GGMI3lHKXC
— Jessica González (@jessicafortexas) August 4, 2023
“We condemn the heinous death traps at our border,” the lawmaker said in a MALC tweet. “First, DPS whistleblower warns about directives to PUSH women and children back into the Rio Grande. Now, an innocent child has drowned at our border. We urge Gov Abbott to remove the death traps.”
(Although Mexican authorities initially reported that the Honduran victim was a child, they later clarified that the migrant was actually a 20-year-old man.)
The immigration reform group America’s Voice slammed Abbott in a statement on Friday, citing the recent reinstitution of family separations at the border. They also criticized his continued use of “invasion” rhetoric, which is often used by white supremacists like the El Paso shooter, and railed against his focus on “dehumanizing cruelty toward migrants.”
America’s Voice Executive Director Vanessa Cárdenas warned against becoming desensitized to Texas’ dangerous border policies.
“No matter whether you’re an asylum seeker or an economic migrant, you don’t deserve to be scapegoated and dehumanized, to face razor wires and buoy lines intentionally designed to hurt or kill you, to have your family separated and your intentions castigated as harmful,” she said in a statement. “You’re not an ‘invader,’ you’re a mother and a human being. And you don’t deserve to watch your child die in your pursuit of safety and a better life.”
