man rights advocates called for federal intervention Monday after it was reported that state troopers assigned to Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott\u2019s border militarization initiative have been ordered to push migrant children back into the Rio Grande and to deny water to asylum-seekers amid a life-threatening heatwave.
The exclusive reporting by Benjamin Wermund of the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News is based on a July 3 email in which an unnamed Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) officer \u201cdiscloses several previously unreported incidents\u201d they witnessed in Eagle Pass, where Abbott \u201chas strung miles of razor wire and deployed a wall of buoys in the Rio Grande.\u201d
As the outlets \u2014 both owned by Hearst Newspapers \u2014 reported:
According to the email, a pregnant woman having a miscarriage was found late last month caught in the wire, doubled over in pain. A four-year-old girl passed out from heat exhaustion after she tried to go through it and was pushed back by Texas National Guard soldiers. A teenager broke his leg trying to navigate the water around the wire and had to be carried by his father.
The email, which the trooper sent to a superior, suggests that Texas has set \u201ctraps\u201d of razor wire-wrapped barrels in parts of the river with high water and low visibility. And it says the wire has increased the risk of drownings by forcing migrants into deeper stretches of the river.
The trooper called for a series of rigorous policy changes to improve safety for migrants, including removing the barrels and revoking the directive on withholding water.
\u201cDue to the extreme heat, the order to not give people water needs to be immediately reversed as well,\u201d the trooper wrote, later adding: \u201cI believe we have stepped over a line into the inhumane.\u201d
\u201cThis is absolutely monstrous, inhumane policy,\u201d U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) tweeted Monday in response to the article. \u201cGov. Abbott\u2019s troops have been told to push migrant children back into the Rio Grande to drown.\u201d
Sawyer Hackett, a senior adviser to former San Antonio Mayor Juli\u00e1n Castro, Joaquin\u2019s brother, asked, \u201cWhere is the federal response to Greg Abbott\u2019s illegal games?\u201d
Responding to Hackett\u2019s Twitter thread, progressive activist Robert Cruickshank wrote, \u201cThe Biden administration needs to step in and put an end to this brutality being waged by the state of Texas against human beings.\u201d
Political communications strategist Murshed Zaheed asked, \u201cDoes the Biden administration have any control over U.S. immigration policies?\u201d As Zaheed pointed out, the \u201cdisturbing news\u201d from Texas comes just days after The Intercept\u2002reported that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement disobeyed a White House order \u201cto narrow its immigration arrests and prioritize deportation for migrants that pose threats to border security, public safety, and national security.\u201d
Rep. Castro said that he \u201craised the issue of Abbott\u2019s barbarity\u201d on Monday night with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. \u201cI read him the title and first paragraph of the San Antonio Express-News article and urged the administration to intervene \u2014 and to remove the death traps Abbott has installed for the sake of human rights.\u201d
Through his so-called Operation Lone Star program, Abbott has in recent weeks intensified his deadly effort to prevent immigrants from entering the United States. Texas\u2019 GOP governor claims that his actions are a necessary response to President Joe Biden\u2019s \u201cdangerous open border policies,\u201d even as rights groups have condemned Biden for continuing in modified form his notoriously xenophobic predecessor\u2019s crackdown on asylum-seekers in what amounts to a bipartisan flouting of international human rights law.
Texas\u2019 installation of buoys in the Rio Grande has provoked complaints from Mexico, which told the U.S. government in a diplomatic note last week that the floating barrier may violate 1944 and 1970 treaties on boundaries and water.
U.S. Border Patrol officials have also issued internal warnings that the rampant use of razor wire is preventing their agents from reaching migrants in need of help and heightening the risk of drownings.
The DPS officer voiced similar concerns, writing that the placement of the wire along the river \u201cforces people to cross in other areas that are deeper and not as safe for people carrying kids and bags.\u201d
As Wermund reported:
The trooper\u2019s email sheds new light on a series of previously reported drownings in the river during a one-week stretch earlier this month, including a mother and at least one of her two children, who federal Border Patrol agents spotted struggling to cross the Rio Grande on July 1.
According to the email, a DPS boat found the mother and one of the children, who went under the water for a minute. They were pulled from the river and given medical care before being transferred to EMS, but were later declared deceased at the hospital. The second child was never found, the email said.
In addition, the DPS officer detailed how, on June 25, \u201ctroopers came across a group of 120 people camped out along a fence set up along the river,\u201d the journalist noted. \u201cThe group included several small children and babies who were nursing, the trooper wrote. The entire group was exhausted, hungry, and tired, the trooper wrote. The shift officer in command ordered the troopers to \u2018push the people back into the water to go to Mexico,\u2019 the email says.\u201d
According to Wermund: \u201cThe trooper wrote that the troopers decided it was not the right thing to do \u2018with the very real potential of exhausted people drowning.\u2019 They called command again and expressed their concerns and were given the order to \u2018tell them to go to Mexico and get into our vehicle and leave,\u2019 the trooper wrote. After they left, other troopers worked with Border Patrol to provide care to the migrants, the email said.\u201d
In a statement, Mario Carrillo, Texas-based campaigns manager for America\u2019s Voice, lamented that \u201cmy state\u2026 is now pushing small children and nursing babies back into the Rio Grande, where deployed razor wire and buoys have already increased the likelihood of drownings.\u201d
\u201cIt\u2019s almost too much to comprehend. Unfortunately, as horrific as this is, it\u2019s not all that unpredictable given the escalation in dehumanization of migrants,\u201d said Carillo. \u201cAbbott, among many other Republicans, has placed political fear-mongering above all, including basic decency, human rights, and how we treat even the most vulnerable in need.\u201d
America\u2019s Voice executive director Vanessa C\u00e1rdenas echoed her colleague, pointing out that \u201cnearly every Republican \u2015 on the campaign trail, and in the halls of Congress \u2015 has escalated their false portrayal of immigrants as threats and invaders.\u201d
\u201cAt least fourteen states are using taxpayer money to support Gov. Abbott in his imagined border war against desperate women, men, and children seeking asylum,\u201d C\u00e1rdenas added. \u201cThe climate that is created by these dangerous lies and the relentless attacks opens the door to treating immigrants \u2015 even nursing babies and children \u2015 as less than human.\u201d
DPS spokesperson Travis Considine did not comment on all the contents of the officer\u2019s email but denied there is a policy against giving water to migrants.
Meanwhile, DPS Director Steven McCraw admitted there has been a recent spike in injuries due to razor wire, including seven instances in which migrants needed \u201celevated medical attention\u201d from July 4 to July 13. Those are on top of multiple injuries, described in the email, that asylum-seekers suffered on June 30.
For his part, Juli\u00e1n Castro argued that \u201cAbbott has made his career by persecuting people seeking a better life in America.\u201d
\u201cThis is awful,\u201d he added. \u201cExactly how much cruelty is enough?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n