Governor Abbott’s Zero Tolerance on Immigration

Activists and some border counties are resisting this GOP power grab.

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Texas Governor Greg Abbott had all the right optics for rallying the Republican faithful to his anti-immigrant campaign: On June 30, Sean Hannity brought his Fox TV show to Hidalgo County, on Texas’s southern border, for a town hall with Donald Trump.

Onstage with Trump, Abbott said “we’re going to start arresting people, putting people behind bars, putting them in jail, not giving them the red-carpet treatment the Biden Administration has been giving them.”

Abbott, who has called for continuing work on former President Donald Trump’s border wall, is  misusing a Texas law, intended for natural catastrophes, to invoke extraordinary powers and portray immigrants seeking safe haven as a “disaster.”

Resistance to Abbott’s plan was readily apparent at a community town hall meeting in Hidalgo the morning of the Trump visit.

“The crisis that does exist at our border is that we are constantly used as a scapegoat, deprived of necessary resources to aid our historically and systematically disenfranchised community and denied justice,” said Roger Ramirez of the Laredo Immigrant Alliance. 

The “You’re Both Fired!” banner behind the podium, along with chants of “Sí se puede,” left little doubt as to the prevailing sentiment.“Abbott is trying to step into the shoes of Trump,” said Laura Peña of the Texas Civil Rights Project. “And we say ‘no.’ ”

The Biden Administration, while rescinding many of Trump’s repressive anti-immigrant policies, continues to expel most asylum seekers at the border. That’s a big mistake and an injustice.

Although it’s unclear what the impact of Abbott’s antics will be, he is clearly attempting to throw a wrench into any efforts to move the Southern border in a humane direction.

“What Abbott is doing is trying to cause a crisis where one hadn’t existed,” Robert Heyman, a policy consultant with the El Paso-based Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, tells The Progressive.

Abbott, who is up for re-election next year as well as being considered a likely presidential contender in 2024, launched Operation Lone Star in early March. He teamed up with the Texas Department of Public Safety to “surge the resources and law enforcement personnel needed to confront this crisis.”

The broad sweep of Abbott’s plans became apparent in his May 31 disaster declaration directing state troopers to apply federal and state laws in assisting Texas counties. This includes arresting undocumented immigrants on state trespassing charges.

Abbott’s declaration also commits to providing jail space for those arrested, and he has emptied a state prison, the Dolph Briscoe Unit in Dilley, so it can be used to incarcerate immigrants.

What’s more, his declaration instructs fifty-six state-licensed shelters to stop housing more than 4,000 unaccompanied children by the end of August—or lose their licenses.

Abbott’s attempt to commandeer border policy—a federal responsibility—also includes diverting $250 million from state spending for border wall construction as well as collecting private donations to do the same.

He has turned to the Texas Disaster Act of 1975 to hype his anti-immigrant campaign and grant him additional powers. This law, for example, provides stiffer penalties for such offenses as trespassing in disaster counties. Even without the enhanced penalties, a trespassing conviction can land an undocumented immigrant 180 days in prison and a fine of $2,000.

“He’s taking a law intended for natural disaster and he is twisting it to set his own immigration policy,” Texas ACLU lawyer Kate Huddleston tells The Progressive.

Huddleston coauthored a June 24 letter to officials of the thirty-four Texas counties that Abbott wanted to participate in his disaster ploy. It warned that taking part in Abbott’s “unilateral efforts to set federal immigration policy and enforce federal immigration law” could put them in violation the Constitution and federal law.

Texas law enforcement has continued to hand over many undocumented immigrants to Border Patrol, but Abbott’s declaration allows the use of state law to jail them on minor charges. Any consideration that they might want asylum is not in the cards.

Where would the children of undocumented immigrants go if their parents are in an adult prison for trespassing?

Meanwhile, GOP stalwarts are rallying to Abbott’s side. Six Republican governors are sending law enforcement officers to the border as a way to bolster Abbott’s anti-immigrant campaign. In a step toward mercenaries for hire, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem enlisted the Tennessee foundation of a Republican mega-donor to cover the costs of dispatching a contingent of her state’s National Guard to Texas.

Local and state police, in Texas and elsewhere, have long collaborated with Border Patrol in enforcement. But Abbott wants enforcement with a Trumpian mindset. 

On June 28, two days before Trump’s visit to the Southern border, Abbott’s office updated its list of counties that have declared a disaster and agreed to partner with the state to arrest and detain “people for crimes related to the border crisis.”

The list of participating counties is now down to twenty-eight—six fewer than a month before. Among those dropped are Hidalgo and neighboring hot spot counties in the lower Rio Grande Valley.

Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez, the county’s top administrator, spelled out his concerns in a June 1 release that says: “In speaking to local law enforcement, they have not reported levels of criminal activity that would require a disaster declaration.” He also urges comprehensive immigration reform and reopening ports of entry at the Southern border. 

Resistance to Abbott has been spearheaded by La Unión del Pueblo Entero. Founded by César Chávez and Dolores Huerta, LUPE organizes immigrant communities. It is pushing for such basic infrastructure spending as paved roads and street lighting.

“We want the world to see us as ambassadors of the border because we want to change the narrative of people seeing us as criminals,” LUPE organizer Raquel Chavez tells The Progressive.

The plight of immigrants, she adds, must be seen through a “humane lens,” which dispels the image of the United States as a nation “filled with hate.”

José, a forty-eight-year-old undocumented immigrant from Mexico living near the border, echoes these concerns.

“The governor should stop playing with people’s lives,” says José, who has lived in the United States for three decades. “At the end of the day, we are the ones affected by his decisions and what he is doing does not benefit us.”

In early June, grassroots opposition to Abbott’s agenda crystallized with A Proclamation by the People of the Río Grande Valley. Denouncing Abbott’s “disastrous leadership,” the document describes him as a governor who “shames and blames Black, brown and working-class communities who have struggled to work, feed their families, and secure healthcare during the pandemic.”

Abbott—pure and simple—wants to treat asylum seekers as criminals.  His approach is in stark contrast to the efforts of many localities and states to break ties with the draconian practices of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol.

Abbott’s brand of “zero tolerance”—arresting immigrants whenever possible—would likely result in a new round of family separations. Where would the children of undocumented immigrants go if their parents are in an adult prison for trespassing?

“I am assuming Governor Abbott wants to be the next Arpaio,” says South Texas Human Rights Center Director Eduardo Canales, referring to the reign of former Sheriff Joe Apaio in the Phoenix area known for his anti-immigrant policies.

As Abbott’s plans take shape, the bigger police presence at the border has already taken a toll.

“We’re working with different organizations trying to bring resources down here in Laredo,” says Ilse Mendez Fraga, an organizer with Laredo Immigrant Alliance.“We don’t have a lot of lawyers to help out with immigration.”  

Even though the thirty-four-year-old Mendez is now protected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, and her four children are U.S. citizens, she avoids highways and a nearby park, where Border Patrol agents are frequently found.

“Since Trump, since Abbott, I don’t feel safe,” says Mendez.