Rights Groups Urge CBP Not to Enforce Texas State Laws

September 20, 2024

The Honorable Alejandro Mayorkas
Secretary 
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Washington, DC 20528

The Honorable Troy A. Miller
Acting Commissioner 
U.S. Customs and Border Protection
Washington, DC 20004

Dear Secretary Mayorkas and Acting Commissioner Miller,

We, the undersigned advocacy organizations, write regarding Texas’ attempt to pull U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) into participating in state arrests and searches and seizures, pursuant to Texas’ S.B. 602. While this law was passed in 2023, allowing CBP officers to make arrests for state felony offenses at ports of entry and interior checkpoints, the new law’s implementation is conditioned on agreement with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and CBP officers’ participation in a state training run by the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS). We understand from a hearing before the Texas House of Representatives in August that Texas is now prepared to start the training and is pressing for and expecting DHS to give approval. We strongly urge you not to allow CBP officers to participate in this training or state arrests under S.B. 602, not to sign an agreement with DPS to participate in these arrests and searches, and to take further steps to disentangle and limit CBP participation in Operation Lone Star.

In the three years since Governor Abbott created Operation Lone Star (OLS) in 2021, our organizations have repeatedly documented and alerted DHS to significant abuses in this program, particularly impacting communities of color and immigrants in Texas. These include racial profiling, fatal car chases, unlawful detentions, and severe due process violations for those arrested and prosecuted.[1] Although Governor Abbott has touted OLS as a “border security” program to stop “illegal migration”, U.S. citizens accounted for approximately 75% of all court proceedings for drug-related offenses, human smuggling, and weapon charges—with a notably racial discriminatory impact against people of color.[2] As a 2024 ACLU of Texas report showed, analyzing data from the three years of arrests, over 96% of those arrested for alleged trespassing were Latine, and among trespassing arrests, Latine people received 98.1% of charges that were enhanced for occurring in a OLS “Disaster Area.”[3] Although we have raised concerns about OLS with both your agency and the Department of Justice—and in particular, CBP officers’ participation in these abusive arrests—the federal government hasn’t made any real effort to cut ties with this program.

Last summer, we were horrified to see DPS officers placing razor-wire-wrapped traps in the Rio Grande and reportedly refusing water to migrant families arriving during a severe heatwave. Several migrants were injured by the razor-wire, and a young woman reportedly miscarried while trapped in the wire.[4] One DPS officer revealed that some troopers were receiving orders to push even young children into the river,[5] and officers were also diverting people in search of safety onto land where they were charged for trespass—instead of allowing them to turn themselves in to CBP to request humanitarian protection.[6] This program has caused significant harm to our communities and newly arrived immigrants; CBP should not be cooperating and enabling these harms, and certainly CBP should not be deepening their partnership with DPS.

In an August 15th hearing before the Texas House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security and Public Safety, invited witnesses Chris Cabrera, a CBP agent and a spokesman for the National Border Patrol Council, and Assistant Chief Derek Prestridge from the Texas DPS testified that CBP officers could help DPS police far beyond the immediate U.S.-Mexico border, conducting arrests at checkpoints up to 100-miles from the border, as a way to allegedly enhance community safety. But as we have seen, an increase in DPS presence and arrests have harmed communities in Texas. A Human Rights Watch report found that between the launch of OLS in March 2021 and July 2023, at least 74 people were killed and 189 people were injured during 49 vehicle pursuits by Texas troopers, local law enforcement, or both in OLS counties.[7] As noted at the hearing, CBP agents can already call DPS when they encounter an individual who is accused of committing a state felony; SB 602’s controversial attempt to pull CBP into direct enforcement of state laws is unnecessary and illogical if CBP is as understaffed as it claims to be.

Further, we are concerned about the quality and content of the training that DPS will provide to CBP officers, not least because of DPS’ pattern of unconstitutional policing as earlier described. At the August hearing, it appeared that even the House Committee members had not seen the training that DPS says is ready to be rolled out. This is concerning because of the significant shortcomings in training that DPS officers themselves receive. Earlier this year, for example, a U.S. Department of Justice report on the tragic mass shooting of children at Uvalde found “cascading failures of leadership, decision-making, tactics, policy and training.”[8] Two years after this tragedy, a settlement with the families is finally requiring an overhaul on police training in responding to active shooters.[9] But meanwhile, in response to complaints about DPS engagement in racial profiling through pretextual stops, DPS has denied that their practices constitute racial profiling. Given this agency’s lack of training of its own officers and its resistance to examining and overhauling its discriminatory policing practices,[10] it is not appropriate for DPS agents to train CBP officers. Any collaborative training with DPS risks including incorrect and even unlawful information, particularly without any independent review.

Finally, allowing border patrol agents to engage in state felony arrests will involve CBP directly in controversy over unlawful and discriminatory arrests, especially as the Texas Legislature continues to create anti-immigrant and other problematic laws. As you know, the federal government is currently in litigation against Texas’ S.B. 4 law, currently stayed at the Fifth Circuit, an unconstitutional law that creates state crimes of “illegal entry” and “illegal reentry” that are distinct from the federal offenses for which CBP is authorized to conduct arrests. United States CBP officers should not deepen their involvement with DPS’ and Texas’ anti-immigrant policing; it should instead withdraw from any further participation in OLS and create clear limits and guidance regarding when and how CBP can engage with DPS, in light of these ongoing abuses in OLS.

We urge you not to sign an agreement that allows CBP officers to participate in a DPS training, which would allow Texas S.B. 602 to take effect. We urge you to prohibit collaboration between CBP and OLS officers, and to create strict limits on how DHS engages with DPS going forward to ensure that CBP officers are not engaged in unlawful and harmful policing in Texas.

Sincerely,

1. American Civil Liberties Union – ACLU
2. ACLU of Texas
3. African Public Affairs Committee
4. American Gateways
5. American Oversight
6. Asian Texans for Justice
7. Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI)
8. Border Vigil of Eagle Pass
9. Border Workers United
10. Borderlands Resource Initiative
11. Children’s Defense Fund - Texas
12. Detention Watch Network
13. Eagle Pass Border Coalition
14. Estrella del Paso
15. Every Texan
16. Grassroots Leadership
17. Hope Border Institute
18. Houston Immigration Legal Services Collaborative
19. Human Rights First
20. Human Rights Watch
21. Immigrant Legal Resource Center
22. Immigration Hub
23. La Union del Pueblo Entero-LUPE
24. Laredo Immigrant Alliance
25. Mano Amiga
26. National Employment Law Project
27. National Immigrant Justice Center
28. National Immigration Law Center
29. National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (NNIRR)
30. Southern Border Communities Coalition
31. Texas Civil Rights Project
32. The Border Network for Human Rights
33. Voces Unidas RGV
34. Washington Office on Latin America
35. Woori Juntos
36. Workers Defense Project