AUSTIN, Texas (CN) — With Border Patrol apprehensions of immigrants in Texas on pace to surpass 1 million this fiscal year, state lawmakers heard testimony Tuesday on a bill pushed by Gov. Greg Abbott to allocate $1.8 billion for border security.
Four Texas sheriffs, whose counties sit on or near the southwest border with Mexico, kicked off testimony on House Bill 9 before the Texas House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday.
They said they are in favor of the measure because their counties lack the resources to arrest, jail and prosecute the unprecedented number of immigrants who smugglers are guiding through the area’s thick brush.
While most immigrant apprehensions in Texas are of asylum seekers who cross the Rio Grande and turn themselves in to Border Patrol agents, many try to avoid law enforcement.
Zavala County Sheriff Eusevio Salinas testified that Texas has stationed many state troopers in his county to staff Operation Lone Star, an immigration law enforcement initiative Gov. Abbott launched in March, and said he cannot take all the immigrants they arrest into custody due to a lack of resources.
Abbott has assigned thousands of state troopers and Texas National Guard soldiers to the region to “combat the smuggling of people and drugs into Texas,” which he claims is a consequence of President Joe Biden’s “open-border policies.”
“I have ranchers now that are calling me that they’re going through their game cameras and they’re seeing groups, large amounts of groups, in my county,” Salinas said. “I’m over 25 miles from the border and game cameras are catching 25 to 30 people walking through their property.”
Salinas said his officers have found six dead bodies so far this year.
Closer to the border in Brooks County, Sheriff Benny Martinez said the brush is also littered with immigrants’ corpses.
“We’ve already had 78 this year, 13 of those bodies were recovered within six days,” Martinez said. “Our temperatures have been high.”
Martinez and other sheriffs laid the blame on Mexican drug cartels preying on immigrants who pay to be smuggled into Texas hoping to reunite with family in the state’s large cities.
“A lot of it has to do with transnational gangs controlling them,” Martinez said. “They’re not aware of how far Houston and Dallas are. They think you cross the border and you’re there.”
“Why don’t they just turn themselves in and get a paper to show up at court at a later date?” he continued. “They can’t do that because they are being controlled. It’s about profit here and that’s something a lot of us don’t think about.”
The problems are not confined to the border.
Jackson County Sheriff A.J. Louderback testified that his county, which is more than 250 miles from the border, filed 30 human trafficking cases in January. Jackson County contains a portion of U.S. Highway 59, a major smuggling route that passes through Houston, the state’s worst human trafficking hub.
Louderback said sheriffs in his area are pulling over smugglers with U-Hauls in tow containing dozens of people locked inside whose scratch marks are on the trailer walls.
“The perspective from the sheriffs in this state are profound,” said Louderback, who serves as legislative chairman for the Texas Sheriffs’ Association. “The carnage, the destruction, the overall impact of the Biden policy or Biden vision for our border security here in the state of Texas, the governor’s initiative that he has put in place is legitimate, it’s valid, it’s necessary.”
The Texas Legislature allocated more than $1 billion for border security in this year’s regular legislative session. Abbott is urging them to pass HB 9 in a special summer session and set aside another $1.8 billion, $100 million of which would be for grants to border counties to pay for law enforcement overtime, vehicles and jail expenses.
Follow @cam_langford
