{"id":437671,"date":"2021-12-17T19:00:11","date_gmt":"2021-12-17T19:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/?p=380966"},"modified":"2021-12-17T19:00:11","modified_gmt":"2021-12-17T19:00:11","slug":"texas-national-guard-filmed-trespassing-during-border-operations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/12\/17\/texas-national-guard-filmed-trespassing-during-border-operations\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas National Guard Filmed Trespassing During Border Operations"},"content":{"rendered":"
It was early<\/u> November when Marianna Trevi\u00f1o Wright saw a convoy of National Guard members in Humvees speed past the National Butterfly Center in Mission, Texas. Shortly thereafter, Trevi\u00f1o Wright, the center\u2019s director, began to see soldiers with assault rifles patrolling nearby and along the banks of the Rio Grande.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have this aggressive posture with the rifles across their chests,\u201d Trevi\u00f1o Wright said. \u201cWe cruise the river four or five times a week on our boat and have not seen anything that would indicate an increase in [migrant] traffic or any sort of increased threat. \u2026 So the question is, What are they doing here?\u201d<\/p>\n
On Monday, a wildlife camera recorded three armed soldiers on a private road inside the butterfly center, which alarmed Trevi\u00f1o Wright and other employees. The privately owned nonprofit nature\u00a0preserve hosts several thousand schoolchildren and visitors every year to experience the flora and fauna, which includes several hundred species of butterflies.<\/p>\n
\u201cI worry that these young, deployed soldiers, who find themselves in a situation that is not their home and their heads filled with Lord only knows what, could act impulsively or recklessly or even accidentally with tragic consequences,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Allowing soldiers to patrol with assault rifles is the latest escalation in an ongoing border campaign by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott called Operation Lone Star. Since March, Abbott has deployed<\/a> more than 10,000 state police officers and soldiers to the Texas border. He has also welcomed soldiers and police from at least 10 other Republican-led states. One billionaire Republican donor in Tennessee, Willis Johnson, funded<\/a> the deployment of South Dakota\u2019s National Guard to Texas. And last week, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee announced<\/a> he\u2019d send 50 more National Guard members in early 2022.<\/p>\n Rick Perry, who was Texas governor from 2000 to 2015, also deployed the state National Guard to the border to assist Border Patrol in surveillance and other support functions. But Abbott is the first Texas governor to send armed soldiers to arrest migrants as quasi-immigration officers.<\/p>\n National Guard members deployed by U.S. presidents are barred from participating in civilian law enforcement duties under the Posse Comitatus Act. But guard members deployed by state leaders have more latitude.<\/p>\n Over the summer, soldiers and state police from the Texas Department of Public Safety, or DPS, began arresting migrants for criminal trespassing in Val Verde County and neighboring Kinney County. Instead of being turned over to Border Patrol, some are being charged with state misdemeanors and prosecuted by Texas counties.<\/p>\n\n Since much of the Texas border is privately owned, DPS has sent teams to ask landowners to sign agreements allowing them access to their land. The landowner is then listed as the \u201ccomplainant\u201d on the trespassing charges against migrants. DPS said it plans to extend<\/a> these arrests to other counties but has yet to expand the initiative.<\/p>\n Trevi\u00f1o Wright said the butterfly center, which is in Hidalgo County, has not signed an agreement allowing soldiers or DPS officers to patrol the center\u2019s land. After discovering that someone had cut through the center\u2019s barbed wire fence, Trevi\u00f1o Wright placed wildlife cameras at the location. Soon after, the center recorded footage of a soldier with a rifle appearing to examine the spot where Trevi\u00f1o Wright said the fence had been cut. Since then, she\u2019s recorded footage of soldiers at the center several times, despite the \u201cNo Trespassing\u201d signs posted.<\/p>\n At press events, Abbott has said<\/a> the flooding of border communities with police and military is necessary due to \u201cthe Biden administration\u2019s open-border policies.\u201d But Biden continues to enforce Title 42<\/a>, an obscure public health regulation the Trump administration invoked to bar asylum-seekers from crossing during the pandemic. And this month, the Trump era\u2019s \u201cRemain in Mexico\u201d program<\/a>, which forces asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico for their U.S. immigration court dates, was reinstated due to a federal court order.<\/p>\n