An official working on Texas’ southern border with Mexico emailed his supervisor expressing deep concern that efforts to bar migrants from entering the United States earlier this month ” had crossed a border into the inhuman”, so a shocking report published from the San Antonio Express News.
The unnamed police officer, who works for the Texas Department of Public Safety, has spent the past few months describing disturbing orders designed to prevent asylum seekers from crossing the Rio Grande at Eagle Pass, Texas. have state officials drew harsh criticism After erecting miles of barbed wire-covered floating barricades on the river, the official likened the initiative to “traps” designed to lure migrants into the trap.
The email details several worrying incidents where migrants have been caught or injured by the barbed wire.
In one case, a 19-year-old woman who was “in obvious pain” was found to be trapped in the wire before being cut free. Medical officials determined that she was pregnant and had suffered a miscarriage. At another point, police treated a man with a “significant laceration” to his leg, sustained while trying to extricate his child from a “water trap” covered with barbed wire.
The email also describes a moment on June 25 when a shift supervisor ordered soldiers to push a large group of people — including small children and infants — back into the Rio Grande “to go to Mexico.” Police at the scene defied the order after raising concerns the exhausted migrants could drown. They were later ordered to tell the group to return to Mexico before leaving the compound.
The police officer also alluded to an order aimed at preventing officers from delivering water to migrants, though Texas officials have denied such an order existed.
“Due to the extreme heat, the order not to give people water must also be lifted immediately,” the police officer wrote, proposing a series of policy changes to protect the safety of migrants. The officer later added, “I think we’ve crossed a line into the inhumane.”
HuffPost has reached out to the Texas DPS for comment on the report.
Eric Gay/Associated Press
Travis Considine, a spokesman for the Department of Public Safety, told Express-News that the agency’s email was known and that its director, Steven McCraw, called for a risk reduction audit for migrants last Saturday. McCraw also sent another email to police, saying the wire, a key feature of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) border measures, was intended to deter smuggling and “not to hurt migrants.”
“The smugglers don’t care if the migrants get hurt, but we don’t, and we must take all necessary measures to mitigate their risk, including injuries from attempting to cross the accordion wire, drowning and dehydration,” it said it in the message.
Abbott has taken dramatic steps to stop migrants from crossing the state line with Mexico and has criticized President Joe Biden for not doing enough to stem a spate of border crossings. The governor has also dropped off thousands of migrants in cities across the country, particularly in states run by Democratic officials, an act human rights groups have called inhumane.
The report prompted swift condemnation from Democrats. Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) called the barbed wire barriers “death traps” on Twitter and said he had called on the Biden administration to intervene “in the interests of human rights.”
