Houston Chronicle, officers who were working for Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s border security were ordered to push small children and babies back into the Rio Grande.
Rolls of razor wire Texas installed along the U.S. side of the Rio Grande as part of Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) “Operation Lone Star” initiative have ensnared several migrants, including a pregnant woman “in obvious pain” while having a miscarriage and a father trying to free his child “stuck on a trap” of razor-wire covered barrels in the water, a Texas state trooper wrote in July 3 email to a superior, the Houston Chronicle reported Monday.
The Dallas Morning News also obtained the email and a corroborating July 4 note from a second Department of Public Safety trooper. Both were identified by name. In recent weeks, Texas has rolled out about 88 miles of razor wire along the Rio Grande and also put buoys in the middle of the river to deter migrants from crossing, sparking conflicts with the U.S. Border Patrol, complains from local businesses, and legal challenges from Mexico.
The July 3 account, reviewed by Hearst Newspapers, discloses several previously unreported incidents the trooper witnessed in Eagle Pass, where the state of Texas has strung miles of razor wire and deployed a wall of buoys in the Rio Grande.
The trooper, stationed in Eagle Pass as part of Operation Lone Star, said Texas officers and National Guard members have been ordered to push children back into the Rio Grande and told not to give water to asylum seekers even as Texas sweltered in extreme heat.
He recounted seeing National Guard soldiers push a 4-year-old girl trying to cross the razor wire back into the river “due to the orders given to them,” adding that the girl then passed out from exhaustion in temperatures “well over 100 degrees.” The 4-year-old girl, 19-year-old pregnant woman, and others lacerated by the razor wire or injured trying to avoid it in the June 30 incidents were transferred to emergency medical services, the trooper wrote. According to the email, a pregnant woman having a miscarriage was found late last month caught in the wire, doubled over in pain. A four-year-old girl passed out from heat exhaustion after she tried to go through it and was pushed back by Texas National Guard soldiers. A teenager broke his leg trying to navigate the water around the wire and had to be carried by his father.
