(OSV News): Catholic migrant advocates condemned a report alleging inhumane treatment of migrants seeking to cross the border from Mexico into Texas, including an allegation that the state directed its personnel to withhold water despite extreme heat.
The Houston Chronicle reported on July 17 that it had obtained a July 3 email showing a trooper-medic sharing concerns with a supervisor in the Texas Department of Public Safety over the treatment of migrants at the border in Eagle Pass, Texas.
The email suggested that troopers involved in the Operation Lone Star border security initiative of Texas governor and Republican politician, Greg Abbott, have been given a directive not to give migrants water.
“Due to the extreme heat, the order to not give people water needs to be immediately reversed as well,” the trooper wrote, adding, “I believe we have stepped over a line into the inhumane.”
Dylan Corbett, executive director of Hope Border Institute, said on July 19, “In El Paso, there is an embarrassing spectacle of state police, guardsmen, concertina wire, additional fences and military Humvees, all positioned against the most vulnerable. The strategy of the governor is to cause pain. And this is killing people.”
Due to the extreme heat, the order to not give people water needs to be immediately reversed as well … I believe we have stepped over a line into the inhumane.
Corbett said that in June alone, 70 people “that we know of died crossing the border.”
He said, “Just recently, the bishop had to administer last rites to a teenager who collapsed in the desert and died. This is what happens with brutal policies of deterrence at the border.”
The July 3 email suggested state officials have set “traps” of razor wire-wrapped barrels in parts of the river with high water and low visibility, according to the Chronicle’s report. The trooper argued that the wire increased the risk of drowning by forcing people into deeper, more dangerous, parts of the river.
It said that a pregnant woman having a miscarriage was found caught in the wire in late June, describing her as doubled over in pain. One father was found carrying his teenage son after he broke his leg navigating around the wire, while a four-year-old girl passed out from heat exhaustion after she tried to go through it but was pushed back by members of the Texas National Guard.
The Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. [CLINIC] condemned the allegations in the report, saying they “represent the very worst of the US immigration system, which dehumanises the vulnerable and desperate people caught within it.”
In El Paso, there is an embarrassing spectacle of state police, guardsmen, concertina wire, additional fences and military Humvees, all positioned against the most vulnerable. The strategy of the governor is to cause pain. And this is killing people
Dylan Corbett
“People of faith and conscience cannot look away from the fact that these actions are done by government employees in our name,” Anna Gallagher, CLINIC executive director, said in a July 20: “Either we believe that all people bear untouchable dignity, or we don’t. Permitting this despicable behaviour denies that truth and rejects the deepest principles of our Catholic faith and our nation’s values.”
In a July 18 joint statement with Texas special advisor on border matters, Mike Banks, Texas Department of Public Safety director, Steve McCraw, and Texas adjutant general, Major General Thomas Suelzer, Abbott’s office said, “No orders or directions have been given under Operation Lone Star that would compromise the lives of those attempting to cross the border illegally.”
The statement insisted, “Until President Biden reverses his open border policies and does his job to secure the border, Texas will continue protecting Texans and Americans from the chaos along the border.”
On July 18, White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said if the report is true, “it is abhorrent, it is despicable, it is dangerous,” adding, “And we’re talking about the bedrock values of who we are as a country.”
In a press statement, Domingo Garcia, national president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, said the group “condemns the inhumane treatment of innocent people and denounces the use of razor wire, buoys, and any other barriers that jeopardise the safety of women and children seeking asylum.”
He said, “These are Christian refugees, and they deserve to be treated with dignity and respect,” adding, “What would Jesus say about such treatment of the most vulnerable in society?”
