ACLU Of Texas Demands DOJ Investigate Operation Lone Star Migrant Arrest Program
TEXAS (CBSDFW.COM) - The ACLU of Texas has filed a Title VI discrimination complaint with nine partner organizations urging the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate Governor Greg Abbott's Operation Lone Star migrant arrest program.
The program integrates the Texas Department of Public Safety with the Texas National Guard and deploys air, ground, marine, and tactical border security assets to high threat areas to deny Mexican cartels and other smugglers the ability to move drugs and people into the state.
"The crisis at our southern border continues to escalate because of Biden Administration policies that refuse to secure the border and invite illegal immigration," said Gov. Abbott in March 2021 after launching the program. "Texas supports legal immigration but will not be an accomplice to the open border policies that cause, rather than prevent, a humanitarian crisis in our state and endanger the lives of Texans. We will surge the resources and law enforcement personnel needed to confront this crisis."
The ACLU's 50-page complaint outlines what the organization considers "unlawful elements" of the operation, "under which Texas law enforcement officers target migrants for arrest, jailing, and criminal prosecution for the state criminal offense of trespassing."
Claiming "virtually all (if not all) of those arrested through Operation Lone Star are Black and Brown people and predominantly migrants," the complaint accuses state and local agencies of racial profiling and biased policing.
