EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – A grassroots organization says it has documented cases of verbal and physical abuse against asylum-seekers crossing the Rio Grande to surrender to U.S. federal authorities in El Paso.
The alleged abuse includes calling migrants “rats,” slapping them in the back of the head and choking them with the straps of a backpack. It is coming from Texas soldiers taking part in Gov. Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star, alleges Fernando Garcia, executive director of the Border Network for Human Rights.
“We began looking into this after people came to us with complaints. We put together a report showing that Texas Guard soldiers are physically and verbally assaulting refugee families and depriving them of their right to petition for asylum by (wielding) lethal and non-lethal weapons at them,” Garcia said at a joint news conference with the Texas Civil Rights Project on Wednesday.
Degrading insults also are being used to deter illegal immigration, the groups said.
One of the migrants’ testimonies quoted verbatim by the groups on a projection slide alleges soldiers in a van began to follow a family of asylum-seekers who came over from Mexico through a hole in the razor wire barrier placed by the state on the Rio Grande levee.
“They got out of the van and began to attack us, saying, ‘You thought you got what you wanted, you f—- bastards. You’re going to go back the way you came in because this is my country and here we make the rules and here the laws are respected.
“You are illegals who do nothing but spend the money of those of us who pay taxes, you are worthless here. You are f—- rats and you are going back through the hole you came in.”
Border Report reached out to Abbott’s office, his reelection campaign, and the Texas Military Department for comment and is awaiting a response.
“These incidents must be investigated, the Texas National Guard must be held accountable for their actions,” said Danny Woodward, staff attorney for the Texas Civil Rights Project. “As the Texas Legislature starts hearings on the border in the upcoming legislative session, we call on lawmakers to confront state leaders with these stories of abuse and demand an end to this violence.”
Texas in March 2021 began deploying thousands of Texas Army National Guard troops and Department of Public Safety troopers to the Texas-Mexico border in response to continuous surges in illegal immigration state leaders attributed to the federal government’s “reckless open-border policies.”
The stated mission of Operation Lone Star is to detect and repel illegal crossings, arrest migrant smugglers and drug cartel gang members, and stop the flow of fentanyl and other drugs into Texas.
Tensions boiled at the Rio Grande in El Paso earlier this year, as frustrated migrants tried to rush past the Guard last March and April. The incidents resulted in dozens of migrants being charged with participating in a riot. A judge in El Paso later dismissed the state charges.
Garcia said most migrants who come into the country are non-violent and echoed federal law enforcement officials’ assertion that most illicit drugs are smuggled through ports of entry, not through the river where asylum-seekers come across.
He said Abbott and other conservative politicians have painted a distorted view for political gain of what is going on at the border.
