A Deep Dive of Texas
My name is Zachary Kolodny. I work with the Austin chapter of Never Again Action on the campaign to end Operation Lone Star (OLS).
You may have heard about how OLS is Gov. Greg Abbott’s inhumane and oppressive border policy regime. But what kind of damage has it done? And what kind of impact is it having on Texas’s most recent cruel anti-immigrant bills?
Let’s do a deeper dive:
Operation Lone Star so far has operated similarly to other systems of oppression that we have seen elsewhere, including apartheid in South Africa, and the American apartheid regime that Black people were subject to here in the United States.
Like South Africa under apartheid, and the Jim Crow era in the U.S, OLS has worked within a system of laws that are technically neutral. That said, OLS has used indirect methods to achieve its system of oppression, in this case, towards migrants – achieving an outcome of white supremacy.
Right now, Gov. Greg Abbott is doubling down – he is about to sign a law that allows for a 20-year sentence for entering Texas without documents.
From a discussion I had with an attorney involved in OLS defense in April 2023, having been at an OLS-related hearing and other information, two primary ways OLS has achieved its goals are trespassing and smuggling charges. Trespassing charges have been brought against mainly non-citizens who are crossing into the United States and smuggling charges have been brought against US citizens transporting these individuals.
Cash bail has been set for both people charged with smuggling and with trespassing. Migrants with trespass charges have been given immigration holds and the Texas Department of Criminal Justice eventually hands the migrants over to federal authorities for deportation. The trespassing charges have resulted in serious due process violations against migrants. There were reports of migrants sitting in prisons for weeks without being charged and without legal help. There are also reports of law enforcement tricking migrants onto private land so they can charge them with trespass.
Unfortunately, the injustice of Operation Lone Star goes beyond its basic structure.
Abbott has been bussing migrants to blue cities in a political stunt, and put buoy and razor wire along the border with Mexico. Some involved in Operation Lone Star even spied on migrants.
A very shocking moment came when it was revealed a trooper involved in Operation Lone Star reported that OLS personnel were ordered to push migrants back into the water into Mexico and that there had been people injured by the razor wire, including a woman who suffered a miscarriage while stuck in the wire. There is currently a legal battle over the razor wire, with the Biden administration trying to cut it.
Governor Abbott recently forced through draconian anti-immigration legislation that is now awaiting his signature. No longer will OLS’s xenophobia be indirect. Abbott, not satisfied with the oppression he has already reigned down on migrants, now wishes to criminalize their very existence directly.
HB4/SB4 makes it a state crime to enter Texas without legal status. There are various classifications for these “crimes” depending on the situation, but it can be up to a second-degree felony (up to 20 years of imprisonment). The new crime created of refusing an order to return to a foreign nation is a second-degree felony. The bill provides that the criminal charges may be dismissed if someone agrees to leave the country. Furthermore, it provides that once a sentence is completed, people convicted of “crimes” under this bill are to be returned to a port of entry. The bill provides that alternatives to incarceration, such as community supervision, are not allowed for acts criminalized under the bill.
Abbott is constantly putting out information claiming that OLS is stopping the influx of drugs and crime. However, the figures used to defend OLS by Abbott are misleading. For example, the fentanyl seizure numbers are statewide and this number is larger than whatever additional fentanyl was seized due to Operation Lone Star. Furthermore, the premise of Abbott’s justification is quite sickening – his idea is that migrants should be targeted as a means to an end. He ignores the humanity of the migrants. He ignores alternatives such as investing in treatment and social services.
No matter where you are, donating to Never Again Action can help build the movement we need to fight injustice against migrants.
Check out some of our partners on the ground in Texas: