Written Testimony of Bob Libal
Consultant, US Program, Human Rights Watch
Submitted to the Texas State Legislature
Senate Border Security Committee
Hearing on June 11, 2024
Texas' Troubled Border Security Program
My name is Bob Libal. I am an Austin, Texas based consultant with the US Program of Human Rights Watch. On behalf of Human Rights Watch, I thank the Texas Senate Border Security Committee for hearing testimony today on Texas’ more than $11 billion border security program and for the opportunity to submit this written testimony.
Human Rights Watch is a non-profit, independent organization that investigates allegations of human rights violations in more than 90 countries around the world, including the United States. We document human rights violations, issue detailed reports, and advocate for changes in law, policy, and practice to prevent and remedy human rights abuses.
Texas’ border policing program known as Operation Lone Star uses billions of dollars to send thousands of Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) and Texas Military agents to the border, provides grants to local law enforcement agencies, and commandeers state prisons from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) to use for the jailing of people arrested and prosecuted. Operation Lone Star has resulted in the construction of border barriers including state-level border walls, razor wire, and shipping containers and the creation of a separate and unequal border policing, court, and jailing system.
Human Rights Watch has previously documented the impact of Operation Lone Star[1] and found the program, while most notably failing to reach its stated aim to “deny Mexican Cartels and other smugglers the ability to move drugs and people into Texas,”[2] has led to injuries and deaths,[3] racial discrimination,[4] abusive detention conditions,[5] and a chilling effect on freedoms of association and expression.[6]
At least 10 Texas National Guard service personnel have died while deployed under Operation Lone Star. These deaths have included five deaths attributed to suicide, one to drowning while attempting to rescue migrants, two to accidental shootings, one to a motorcycle accident, and one to a blood clot that a servicemember developed while deployed during a heat wave.[7] Additionally, Anthony Salas, a Texas Department of Public Safety special agent, died while riding on a truck deployed during a nighttime operation.[8]
Operation Lone Star has led to deadly, high-speed vehicle pursuits
According to an extensive report by Human Rights Watch released in November 2023, Operation Lone Star has contributed to scores of deadly high-speed vehicle pursuits. During pursuits of vehicles containing migrants in the 29 months between the start of OLS in March 2021 and July 2023, at least 74 people were killed and another 189 injured as the result of 49 pursuits by Texas troopers or local law enforcement, or both, in Operation Lone Star counties.[9]
Some of the people killed and injured by vehicle pursuits in OLS counties were not directly involved in the pursuits, and some of these were children. Among the bystanders killed was a 7-year-old girl, and among bystanders injured were five children of unknown age – all of them Texas residents. While some pursuits begin with reckless driving or evasion of arrest by the pursued vehicle, it takes very little for law enforcement to initiate a pursuit: 81 percent of the vehicle pursuits that occurred in Operation Lone Star counties were initiated because of a traffic violation, 97 percent of which were traffic misdemeanors such as failure to obey an attempted stop by law enforcement, speeding, or not obeying traffic signals.[10]
Department of Public Safety (DPS) deployments in Operation Lone Star counties have led to dramatic and measurable increases in vehicle pursuits. Whereas an average of 140 pursuits per month were conducted by DPS across the state in the year prior to OLS, an average of 201 per month have taken place in the roughly two years since it began.[11]
In El Paso County, for example, pursuits by state troopers increased by hundreds between January and April 2023, the first four months the county was involved in Operation Lone Star. In Kinney County, vehicle pursuits by state troopers increased from 22 in the 12 months before OLS began in March 2021, to 227 in the 26 months since OLS has been in effect in the county.[12]
These high-speed pursuits do not follow policing best practices. Across the country, police departments have moved to restrict their vehicle pursuit policies in response to a growing recognition that pursuits lead to a “high risk of loss of life, serious personal injury, and serious property damage.”[13]
In September 2013, the Houston Police Department adopted a vehicle chase policy prohibiting chases when the possible charges — other than evading arrest — are Class C offenses, traffic-related offenses, or nonviolent misdemeanor offenses. In other cases, under Houston’s policy the vehicle pursuit is permitted only if the officer determines in good faith that the need to immediately apprehend the suspect outweighs the risk of harm to the officer or the public by engaging in the pursuit.[14]
In an interview with Human Rights Watch, the Houston Police Department explained they have options to pursue a suspect even when a chase is called off:
The biggest option we have is the license plate and working with the vehicle description […] Helicopters also can help; they do have video equipment and sometimes they can get a video of the plates. They can also get a visual on where the vehicle goes and where it stops. [15]
Nevertheless, Texas law continues to allow for vehicle pursuits. Section 546.001 of the Texas Transportation Code allows for law enforcement to chase other vehicles “when in the pursuit of an actual or suspected violator of the law” and permits an officer to “exceed the maximum speed limits so long as he or she does not endanger life or property.” The Texas Department of Public Safety’s vehicle pursuit policy, issued in 2017, gives individual officers total discretion and ultimate authority to engage in a chase, without providing clear guidelines, other than the general caveat against endangering life or property contained in the transportation code, that might restrict their decisions. [16]
Following our report, the Dallas Morning News editorial board encouraged state lawmakers to address high-speed vehicle pursuits under Operation Lone Star, writing: “Too many people are being killed and injured, and too many other people are facing significant property loss, for the problem to be ignored.”[17]
Other Rights Violations Under Operation Lone Star
As Human Rights Watch has previously documented, Operation Lone Star has violated the right to be free from racial discrimination[18] and the right to seek asylum under US[19] and international law[20] by employing a separate and unequal state criminal justice system to target migrants (including asylum seekers) and US citizens near the Texas border for arrest, criminal prosecution, and imprisonment.[21] In two separate complaints, several Texas-based civil rights organizations analyzed 484 arrests under Operation Lone Star and concluded the arrests involved “severe racial disparities and clear indications of profiling based on race and national origin.”[22] According to media sources, Operation Lone Star raises sufficient concerns about possible violations of US non-discrimination laws that it has come under investigation by the US Department of Justice.[23]
Operation Lone Star has aggressively used selective enforcement of the misdemeanor offense of criminal trespass to justify the arrest and detention of thousands of alleged migrants in a newly created segregated criminal legal system with separate dockets, public defender assignments, jails, and booking facilities.[24] Simply put, people not perceived as migrants do not face the same criminal penalties for the same actions.[25]
And, according to an analysis by the American Civil Liberties Union, Operation Lone Star has expanded far from the border and primarily arrested people accused of low-level offenses like trespassing. Operation Lone Star has overwhelmingly prosecuted US citizens, rather than migrants, for drug-related offenses, human smuggling, and weapon charges.[26]
Outside of the issue of arrests and prosecutions, recurring incidents and reports of border control tactics that have involved unnecessary force or caused injuries underscore the need for this committee and state legislators to act. Last month, media reports indicated that Texas National Guard members deployed under Operation Lone Star had fired pepper balls at migrants, including where children were present. [27]
State officials ultimately have the institutional power to end border policies that threaten rather than enhance public safety. Thank you for considering these issues as this Committee contemplates these matters before you today.
[1] Written Testimony of Bob Libal, Consultant, US Program, Human Rights Watch, February 9, 2023, https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/02/09/written-testimony-bob-libal-consultant-us-program-human-rights-watch
[2] Office of Texas Governor Greg Abbott, “Governor Abbott, DPS Launch ‘Operation Lone Star’ To Address Crisis at Southern Border,” March 6, 2021, https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/governor-abbott-dps-launch-operation-lone-star-to-address-crisis-at-southern-border (visited February 6, 2023). See also James Barragan, “Migrant Encounters at the Border are Higher Today Than They Were Before Gov. Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star Began,” Texas Tribune, https://www.texastribune.org/2022/09/28/greg-abbott-border-migrants/ (noting that “The number of migrant encounters at the Texas-Mexico border has climbed from 109,456 in March 2021, the month the mission began, to 116,976 in August — a slower rate of growth than at other parts of the border but a failure of Abbott’s office’s stated desire to “stop this revolving door and deter others considering entering illegally.”).
[3] Jolie McCullough, “Texas troopers are causing car chase fatalities and racially profiling drivers under Abbott’s border crackdown, complaint claims,” Texas Tribune, July 28, 2022, https://www.texastribune.org/2022/07/28/texas-dps-pursuits-profiling/.
[4] ACLU, et. al, Letter to Merrick Garland, et al, Texas Migrant Arrest Program under “Operation Lone Star”—Urgent Need for Investigation into Race and National Origin Discrimination by Texas Agencies, December 15, 2021, https://www.aclutx.org/sites/default/files/field_documents/ols_trespass_arrest_title_vi_complaint.pdf
[5] Maria Ramos Pacheco, Detainees under Abbott’s Operation Lone Star in Texas lack proper legal access, Dallas Morning News, May 12, 2022, https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2022/05/12/detainees-under-abbotts-operation-lone-star-in-texas-lack-proper-legal-access/
[6] Human Rights Watch, “Texas Investigation of Civic Groups Dangerous for Rights,” December 20, 2022, https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/12/20/texas-investigation-civic-groups-dangerous-rights.
[7] Davis Winkie and James Barragán, “Another National Guard Soldier Working Operation Lone Star Dies by Suspected Suicide,” The Texas Tribune, October 4, 2022, https://www.texastribune.org/2022/10/04/texas-national-guard-suicide-operation-lone-star/ (accessed November 9, 2023).
[8] Allie Morris and Dianne Solis, “Death of DPS Agent at Texas-Mexico Border Was Preventable, Experts Say,” Dallas News, January 26, 2023, https://www.dallasnews.com/news/2023/01/26/experts-death-of-dps-agent-at-texas-mexico-border-was-preventable/ (accessed November 9, 2023).
[9] Human Rights Watch, “So Much Blood on the Ground: Dangerous and Deadly Vehicle Pursuits under Texas’ Operation Lone Star,” November 23, 2023, https://www.hrw.org/report/2023/11/27/so-much-blood-ground/dangerous-and-deadly-vehicle-pursuits-under-texas-operation
[10] Ibid.
[11] Human Rights Watch analysis of Texas Department of Public Safety records, on file with Human Rights Watch.
[12] Human Rights Watch, “So Much Blood on the Ground: Dangerous and Deadly Vehicle Pursuits under Texas’ Operation Lone Star,” November 23, 2023, https://www.hrw.org/report/2023/11/27/so-much-blood-ground/dangerous-and-deadly-vehicle-pursuits-under-texas-operation
[13] National Institute of Justice, “Restrictive Policies for High-Speed Police Pursuits,” U.S. Department of Justice, https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/122025NCJRS.pdf (accessed August 5, 2023).
[14] “Houston Police Department: Motor Vehicle Pursuit Policy,” Thomas E. Hardin, April 28, 2022, https://www.houstontx.gov/council/committees/pshs/20220428/HPD-Pursuit-Policy.pdf. The El Paso County Sheriff’s office also has a vehicular pursuit policy, provided to Human Rights Watch after we requested comment on an incident in this report. The El Paso County Sheriff’s Office states, in part: “it is the policy of this Office to only engage in vehicular pursuits in response to the most serious incidents, when the risk of allowing the subject of the pursuit to remain at-large is greater than the risk of the pursuit itself.” El Paso County Sheriff, “Policy 9.03. Also: Pursuit Driving and Roadblocks,” effective December 2006, revised November 10, 2020, on file with Human Rights Watch.
[15] Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Jodi Silva, Houston Police Department Spokesperson, Houston, Texas, October 18, 2023.
[16] Texas Highway Patrol, Emergency and Pursuit Operations, (Texas Department of Public Safety, 2017), https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3699762-DPSPursuitPolicy.html (accessed August 5, 2023).
[17] Editorial Board, “Texas DPS needs to reign in high-speed chases through border towns,” Dallas Morning News, November 29, 2023, https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/2023/11/29/texas-dps-needs-to-rein-in-high-speed-chases-through-border-towns/
[18] Arrested migrants and US citizens caught up in Operation Lone Star are sent into a shadow criminal legal system that violates US obligations under international human rights law prohibiting racial discrimination. Human Rights Watch / ACLU, “Joint Submission Regarding the United States’ Record Under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination,” August 8, 2022, https://www.hrw.org/report/2022/08/08/racial-discrimination-united-states/human-rights-watch/aclu-joint-submission#_ftn186.
[19] See 8 U.S. Code § 1158(a), “Authority to Apply for Asylum,” https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1158.
[20] Operation Lone Star also violates US obligations under international refugee law, which the US is bound by due to its ratification of the 1967 Refugee Protocol. Article 31(1) of the 1951 Refugee Convention states, “The Contracting States shall not impose penalties, on account of their illegal entry or presence, on refugees who, coming directly from a territory where their life or freedom was threatened in the sense of Article 1, enter or are present in their territory without authorization, provided they present themselves without delay to the authorities and show good cause for their illegal entry or presence.” The protections of article 31 have been interpreted to include asylum seekers (those whose claims have not yet been adjudicated) because it cannot be determined at the point of entry whether the person qualifies as a refugee or not.
[21] American Civil Liberties Union—Texas et. al., “Texas Migrant Arrest Program under ‘Operation Lone Star’—Urgent Need for Investigation into Race and National Origin Discrimination by Texas Agencies,” December 15, 2021, https://www.aclutx.org/sites/default/files/field_documents/ols_trespass_arrest_title_vi_complaint.pdf; American Civil Liberties Union--Texas et. al., "Texas Migrant Arrest Program under ‘Operation Lone Star’—Continued Urgent Need for Investigation into Race and National Origin Discrimination,” February 23, 2022, https://www.aclutx.org/sites/default/files/operation_lone_star_title_vi_supplemental_complaint.pdf; American Civil Liberties Union et. al., “Re: Texas Migrant Arrest Program under ‘Operation Lone Star’—Continued Urgent Need for Investigation into Race and National Origin Discrimination by Texas Agencies,” April 7, 2022, https://www.aclutx.org/sites/default/files/ols_supplemental_complaint_4.7.22.pdf.
[22] See American Civil Liberties Union—Texas et. al., “Texas Migrant Arrest Program under ‘Operation Lone Star’—Urgent Need for Investigation into Race and National Origin Discrimination by Texas Agencies,” December 15, 2021, https://www.aclutx.org/sites/default/files/field_documents/ols_trespass_arrest_title_vi_complaint.pdf; American Civil Liberties Union--Texas et. al., "Texas Migrant Arrest Program under ‘Operation Lone Star’—Continued Urgent Need for Investigation into Race and National Origin Discrimination,” February 23, 2022, https://www.aclutx.org/sites/default/files/operation_lone_star_title_vi_supplemental_complaint.pdf.
[23] Perla Trevizo, “Justice Department is Investigating Texas’ Operation Lone Star for Alleged Civil Rights Violations,” Texas Tribune, July 6, 2022, https://www.texastribune.org/2022/07/06/operation-lone-star-doj-investigation-abbott/.
[24] American Civil Liberties Union—Texas et. al., “Texas Migrant Arrest Program under ‘Operation Lone Star’—Urgent Need for Investigation into Race and National Origin Discrimination by Texas Agencies,” December 15, 2021, https://www.aclutx.org/sites/default/files/field_documents/ols_trespass_arrest_title_vi_complaint.pdf. See also, “Inside Operation Lone Star,” New York Times, May 19, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/19/podcasts/the-daily/texas-mexico-border-greg-abbott.html (accessed July 21, 2022); Letter from Raquel Aldana, Professor of Law, UC Davis School of Law et al., to Merrick Garland, Attorney General, US Department of Justice et al., January 21, 2022, https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/crsj/webinar/february-2022/law-professor-letter-operation-lone-star.pdf.
[25] American Civil Liberties Union—Texas et. al., “Texas Migrant Arrest Program under ‘Operation Lone Star’—Urgent Need for Investigation into Race and National Origin Discrimination by Texas Agencies,” December 15, 2021, https://www.aclutx.org/sites/default/files/field_documents/ols_trespass_arrest_title_vi_complaint.pdf.
[26] American Civil Liberties Union — Texas, Operation Lone Star: Misinformation and Disinformation in Texas Border Enforcement, May 22, 2024, https://www.aclutx.org/en/publications/operation-lone-star-misinformation-and-discrimination-texas-border-enforcement
[27] Julian Resendiz, Asylum-seeking families take cover after Texas National Guard fires pepper balls, Border Report, May 28, 2024, https://www.borderreport.com/immigration/asylum-seeking-families-take-cover-after-texas-national-guard-fires-pepper-balls/; Nick Mordowanec, Migrants Say They Took Cover as Texas National Guard Fired Pepper Balls, Newsweek, May 29, 2024, https://www.newsweek.com/migrants-el-paso-bullets-texas-guard-1905906#:~:text=On%20Tuesday%2C%20a%20guardsman%20aimed,video%20taken%20by%20Border%20Report
