USA, Texas: the state empowers “law-abiding” citizens to arrest and dissuade people from crossing the US-Mexico border.

ROME – Bills introduced to Texas lawmakers that target migrants, including one that instructs state-sponsored vigilantes to “deter and turn away” people at the border, are dangerous and extreme, he summed up what he says today Human Rights Watch. Texas, therefore, would create a “Border Protection Unitwhose chief would answer to Gov. Greg Abbott. The bill would allow the administration to delegate any “law-abiding” citizen to serve in the unit, and then arrest, detain and dissuade people from crossing the state line United States and Mexico. Individuals serving in the unit would be granted criminal and civil immunity against wrongdoing charges. The ability to be denied entry on public health grounds is also being claimed. The bill would create an indictment third-degree felony of trespassing with a minimum fine of $10,000; and would further fund the Texas border wall.

“Empowering the police is very dangerous”. “The new immigration proposals of Operation Lone Star and Texas are extremes among states in the United States and among countries in the world,” said Bob Libal, a consultant to Human Rights Watch based in Texas. “Empowering the Texas police to vigilantes is dangerous.” US President Joe Biden and federal agencies like the Department of Homeland Security should immediately stop work and end funding to Texas agencies implementing the border initiative Operation Lone Star of Governor Abbott, he said Human Rights Watch. Another Texas bill would create a “border protection” court and criminal system that would institutionalize much of Governor Abbott’s separate Operation Lone Star network.

The lawlessness incorporated into the law. “Over the past two years, theOperation Lone Star allowed state politicians to overstep their hold on federal immigration policy; the bills are a blatant attempt to consolidate this illegal reach by incorporating it into Texas law,” said Roberto Lopez, senior advocacy manager for the Beyond Borders program at the Texas Civil Rights Project. “The new police force and the new system judicial process would allow state politicians to continue to arrest and convict some of the most vulnerable people in our society – people seeking refuge from violence, terror and poverty – without real oversight. This is a dangerous takeover that offers no solution to the humanitarian emergency.”

Discriminatory and abusive operation. The new bills are based on theOperation Lone Star by Governor Abbott, a discriminatory and abusive operation that targets perceived migrants and others for arrest, charge and jail time for misdemeanor and felony offenses. Operation Lone Star has resulted in injuries and deaths, has consistently violated the rights of migrants and U.S. citizens, and has suppressed the freedoms of association and expression of groups providing basic aid in Texas, he said Human Rights Watch. The operation cost more than $4.4 billion, while falling short of its stated goal of “denying Mexican cartels and other bootleggers the ability to move drugs and people into Texas.”

Biden’s complicity. “The Biden administration’s collaboration with Operation Lone Star and the failure to investigate its constitutional and human rights violations has emboldened Texas lawmakers to adopt these extreme proposals that further endanger the lives of migrants and others throughout Texas and drain resources for basic needs.” “Vigilante hate groups have already used these programs to formalize relationships with border marshals,” said Alicia Torres, immigration campaigns coordinator at Grassroots Leadership. Who will protect Texas immigrants when vigilantes are delegated, granted immunity, and allowed to patrol the entire state under these extreme proposals?”