The nation’s largest civil rights organization is pressuring the Biden administration to bar federal law enforcement at the southern border from working with Texas troopers as the state attempts to return illegal immigrants to Mexico.
The American Civil Liberties Union on Monday told the Department of Homeland Security it should not allow Customs and Border Protection personnel to take into custody noncitizens whom Texas state military and police have first apprehended and detained, according to a letter obtained by the Texas Tribune.
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“DHS should decline to take custody of individuals in these circumstances, and should prevent Texas state and local officials from detaining individuals on federal property pursuant to Governor Abbott’s executive order,” ACLU staff attorneys wrote in a letter to the DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.
The ACLU last week successfully pressured CBP to acknowledge and investigate its allegations that Border Patrol agents in Arizona were confiscating and refusing to return turbans belonging to Sikh men after they illegally crossed the border.
This ACLU’s latest petition comes one month after Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) announced the state would begin transporting illegal immigrants to the ports of entry, where vehicles and pedestrians crossing the border in either direction are inspected before being admitted. Abbott effectively turned state troopers from the Texas Department of Public Safety into federal immigration officials by allowing troopers to impose a consequence for an immigration offense, which the ACLU argued is out of Abbott’s legal authority.
Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020, federal border officials have been allowed to expel to Mexico immediately any immigrant caught attempting to enter the United States illegally from Mexico.
Under the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Title 42 recommendation, Border Patrol agents who work on the land between ports of entry where migrants illegally cross and are apprehended have the temporary authority to expel migrants to Mexico rather than take people into custody. Now, the Abbott initiative has local law enforcement transporting migrants back to ports of entry, where CBP can process and return people south of the border.
The Texas Tribune report said it recently observed state troopers appearing to drop off illegal immigrants at the CBP-run port of entry in Eagle Pass, Texas, an indication of cooperation between the state and federal agencies.
“Simply put, migrants are being held on federal property in violation of the [federal standards] and in potentially dangerous conditions,” the ACLU letter said.
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As a result, the ACLU recommended that the federal government keep its distance from Abbott’s operation. The ACLU also asked the DHS Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties to look into the extent that CBP is working with Texas troopers at the ports of entry.
Abbott’s office and the DHS did not respond to requests for comment.
