An internal investigation by the Texas Department of Public Safety has concluded that no systemic wrongdoing took place by its personnel on the Texas-Mexico border, finding "no reasonable cause" to suspect leadership of engaging in conduct that violated law or policy. Released findings from a DPS Office of Inspector General report come after a department medic raised concerns in July, claiming that troopers were instructed to push migrants back into the Rio Grande and deny them water while participating in Gov. Greg Abbott’s Operation San Antonio.
Despite allegations brought forward by the whistle-blowing medic, the DPS report summary stated that the initiative to curb illegal migration did not set forth directives that would withhold water from migrants. Sharing with KENS5, supervisors issued guidance to not provide water "to everyone under every circumstance," in a bid not to encourage illegal crossings, although water was given in situations deemed necessary.
Claims of migrants being physically forced back into the river were also dismissed by the report, indicating that while instructions were given to return to Mexico via official ports of entry, the term "push" was not meant to be taken as a literal directive for physical action. Over the course of the investigation, as reported by The Texas Tribune, the inquiry involved interviewing 51 individuals, reviewing 108 gigabytes of body camera footage, and examining an array of documents.
Yet, this official stamp of exoneration does little to quell the voices of critics, like U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, who have openly doubted the internal mechanism of DPS's self-scrutiny. Echoing the whistleblower's account and asylum-seekers' testimonies, Castro has accused Operation Lone Star of being a political maneuver with DPS leadership acting as mouthpieces for Gov. Abbott. "They've lost all credibility," he told KENS5. As per the DPS report summary, though incidents did occur at the border where migrants suffered injuries from concertina wire, there was no evidence to suggest the placement of said wire was intended to cause harm.
In response to the leaked email laying out the alleged events, including incidents involving children and a 19-year-old woman supposedly having a miscarriage, DPS Inspector General Phillip Ayala refuted these specific accounts during a Public Safety Commission meeting. According to Ayala, the young woman found in the wire was experiencing abdominal pain, not a miscarriage, and the mentioned 15-year-old boy's injuries occurred long before the border incident. Nevertheless, these statements have not gone unchecked, leaving a community and a nation wrestling with the arduous task of separating fact from politicized fiction, all while lives hang in the balance on the razor-thin edge between sanctuary and suffering.
