Texas Gov. Greg Abbott Ordered Troopers To Push Children Into The River
And worse. Gird yourselves.
Texas state troopers assigned to Gov. Greg Abbott’s border crackdown, Operation Presidential Bid, have been ordered to “push small children and nursing babies back into the Rio Grande, and have been told not to give water to asylum seekers even in extreme heat,” according to reporting by the Houston Chronicle, based on an email from a Department of Public Safety (DPS) trooper working as a medic. CNN has also obtained the same documents.
As part of his effort to make undocumented immigrants just go away forever so he can become president, Abbott has recently installed long strings of “deterrence buoys” in the middle of the Rio Grande, along with miles of razor wire along the banks. The buoys are installed along some of the areas that are relatively easy to cross, leading some migrants to try crossing more dangerous sections of the river. Mexico has complained that the buoys violate a treaty between the US and Mexico, as if that mattered.
The email, dated July 3, reports on events from the week of June 24 to July 1, And reports that within just one seven-hour period, two medics treated, as CNN summarizes,
A 4-year-old girl passed out in 100-degree heat after Texas (National) Guard personnel pushed the group she was in back towards Mexico
A man with a significant laceration on his leg, suffered when he tried to rescue his child from razor wire placed on a deterrence buoy in the Rio Grande
A 15-year-old boy with a broken leg, suffered when he tried to cross a more dangerous part of the river away from the buoys
A 19-year-old woman trapped in the wire having a miscarriage
In addition, CNN reports, the next day, a mother and two children were dragged underwater while trying to cross in an area where there wasn’t any wire. The woman and one child were pulled out by officers on a DPS boat after about a minute underwater but were pronounced dead at a hospital; the other child’s body was recovered later, and no doubt Abbott and his supporters would say that’s too bad but she shouldn’t have crossed illegally, which is a misdemeanor, but makes white people mad enough that capital punishment is clearly deserved.
In another incident, on June 25, the medics were told to butt out while other troopers were busy violating human rights in the name of “border security”:
[T]roopers came across a group of 120 people camped out along a fence set up along the river. The group included several small children and babies who were nursing, the trooper wrote. The entire group was exhausted, hungry and tired, the trooper wrote. The shift officer in command ordered the troopers to “push the people back into the water to go to Mexico,” the email says.
The trooper wrote that the troopers decided it was not the right thing to do “with the very real potential of exhausted people drowning.” They called command again and expressed their concerns and were given the order to “tell them to go to Mexico and get into our vehicle and leave,” the trooper wrote. After they left, other troopers worked with Border Patrol to provide care to the migrants, the email said.
It’s not clear from either CNN or the Chronicle whether the group was ultimately forced back to Mexico; if the Border Patrol was on the scene, it seems more likely they were detained by the feds, after which they may well have been deported under current border policy, but not forced back into the river.
Previously: US-Mexico Border Quiet. A Little TOO Quiet.
The trooper medic wrote that he believed
“we a have stepped over a line into the in humane [sic]. We need to operate it correctly in the eyes of God. We need to recognize that these are people who are made in the image of God and need to be treated as such.”
No word on whether he has been disciplined for dragging God into it in a way that suggests migrants are human.
He also suggested that the razor wire could be placed more humanely, to allow migrants to walk along the US bank of the river until they reach points where they can be taken into custody by the Border Patrol. He also called for the wire to be regularly patrolled to rescue families as needed, and for the razor wire to be lit up at night “so people can see the wire and not stumble into it as a trap.” But what fun would that be?
CNN reports that Texas DPS’s Office of the Inspector General is investigating the trooper’s claims, and we’re sure he’ll be fired for putting the state’s policies in writing.
Last week, the the Houston Chronicle reported that the Border Patrol is none too happy about Abbott’s buoys and barbed wire, according to an internal US Customs and Border Protection document:
The wire is preventing agents from getting to asylum-seekers — some of whom have said they have been stuck in the river for hours and days, exposed to the elements with little to no help from Texas Department of Public Safety officers, according to the document.
Migrants are now traversing the banks of the river along spools of thick, sharp wire, increasing the chance of drownings, the document warns. And with water levels rising and some of the wire placed inside the river and not visible, there is a “high risk” of injury, it says.
The document was dated just days before four migrants, including an infant, drowned in the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass. Officials have not said the wire played a role in the drownings. A Texas DPS spokesman has said the migrants were found floating along the river by state officials July 1.
In another incident, a Fox News reporter tweeted video of a Border Patrol agent cutting through the razor wire so Border Patrol agents could rescue a group of migrants with several small children from the extreme heat.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued a statement saying this was all Joe Biden’s fault and that the lack of razor wire was what made the border unsafe, but fuck Greg Abbott, we won’t include his other lies here.
We can only assume that Donald Trump will now campaign on a pledge to fire any Border Patrol officers caught giving water to migrants or preventing them from drowning, and then Ron DeSantis will hire contractors to bring migrants from Texas so they can be drowned in Florida instead.
[Houston Chronicle (gift link) / CNN / Texas Tribune]
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In case you were wondering about the video screenshot of the family walking in the Rio Grande, the little girl is actually skipping. Because she's like three years old and three-year-olds skip. Full vid here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmuu4AUyRk0&t=9s Also, goddamn it.
Reminder: Abbott and others of his ilk claim to be followers of Jesus Christ. Jesus was a refugee, an immigrant, but found refuge in Egypt. Over and over in the Bible, God tells people to welcome strangers, ophans and the needy. So my point is that Abbott is a piece of shit.