The above photo depicts DPS troopers on the US side of the river, while there are migrants cooling off in the river on the Mexican side, beneath the Matamoros/Brownsville port of entry bridge.
DPS Trooper-Medic: “We need to recognize that these are people who are made in the image of God and need to be treated as such.”
In a previous blog from last month, I detailed Governor Abbott’s announcement of his plans to purchase “1,000 feet of buoys to install in the Rio Grande in the area of Eagle Pass, at a cost of approximately $1 million. In the words of Abbott, “What these buoys will allow us to do is prevent people from even getting to the border.” However, Abbott’s promise of “preventing people from even getting to the border” has gone far beyond, as a Department of Public Safety (DPS) trooper-medic detailed in an email to his superiors: “I believe we have stepped over a line into the inhumane.”
DPS troopers and National Guard soldiers are stationed at the Southern border as part of Operation Lone Star for which Texas has spent over 4 billion dollars in the past two years, and plans to continue funding. A recent email from a DPS trooper states they, “were given orders to push the people back into the water to go to Mexico” and ordered not to give them water despite the “extreme heat”. Additionally, the DPS trooper details several incidents including:
-
-
- “A 4-year-old girl passed out in 100-degree heat after Texas (National) Guard personnel pushed the group she was in back toward Mexico
- A man with a significant laceration on his leg, suffered when he tried to rescue his child from razor wire placed on a deterrence buoy in the Rio Grande
- A 15-year-old boy with a broken leg, suffered when he tried to cross a more dangerous part of the river away from the buoys
- A 19-year-old woman trapped in the wire having a miscarriage”
-
The DPS trooper called for superiors to take action, demanding that, “the wire and barrels in the river need to be taken out as this is nothing but an inhumane [sic] trap in high water and low visibility.” Most notably, the DPS trooper wrote in the email, “We need to recognize that these are people who are made in the image of God and need to be treated as such.”
Congress Needs to Act Now: The DIGNIDAD (Dignity) Act of 2023
Recently, Texas Impact partnered with the American Business Immigration Coalition to hold an informational webinar on the Dignity Act and other solutions. The DIGNIDAD (Dignity) Act of 2023 is a bipartisan bill sponsored by two members of Congress, Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX) and Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL) among other representatives. Representative Salazar indicated that the bill is intended to follow the “biblical principles of Dignity and Redemption.”
As I wrote in a previous blog, “ Processing migrants at the Southern border efficiently and effectively requires infrastructure that helps maintain their –God given dignity– focused on solutions instead of merely deterrence.” The Dignity Act of 2023, is a comprehensive bill that would bring solutions such as an “immigration infrastructure fund, asylum reform, and in country processing in Latin America” among other detailed solutions. It is time for the federal government to take action and pass comprehensive immigration reform once and for all, so that Texas and other states can stop implementing their own inhumane immigration enforcement tactics.
Not a Time to Despair but to Demand Action
This is a moment in time for the community, and especially for communities of faith to start calling on their leadership to step up and do what is right and just. In the Rio Grande Valley, La Unión del Pueblo Entero (LUPE) has put out a statement demanding that congress investigate Operation Lone Star. Texas Impact plans to hold a bill briefing of the DIGNIDAD (Dignity) Act of 2023 with the representatives who authored/sponsored the bill. Now is the time to learn about solutions and then to take action in making calls to your congressional representatives. It is also a time to no longer accept the inhumanity, and like the DPS trooper-medic, demand that leadership not accept the infliction of suffering and cruelty on our brothers and sisters.
