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Human Rights Watch stated that proposals against migrants which will be discussed at a special session of the Texas Legislature called by Governor Greg Abbott on October 10,
Human Rights Watch stated that proposals against migrants which will be discussed at a special session of the Texas Legislature called by Governor Greg Abbott on October 10, “will increase Violation of an individual’s rights and will result in long prison sentences for thousands of young Texans.”
HRW was “particularly” concerned about these proposals punishable by imprisonment up to 20 years a state crime created to address the illegal entry of migrants into Texas, allowing state law enforcement to deport asylum seekers for illegal entry and increasing penalties for human smuggling.
“The crime of unlawful entry already exists in federal law,” said HRW Texas counsel Bob Libal in a statement, in which he said that “besides being duplicative, this insensitive proposal is completely at odds with Office of Human Rights regulations.” What They prohibit governments from deporting refugees prosecute or punish refugees for illegal entry.”
In this sense, the NGO representative noted that “the state police are not qualified to process asylum requests or deport people. His Job is protect public safety“.
These proposals are based on Operation Lone Staran operation that HRW described as “discriminatory and offensive and whose goal is nothing less than the detention, processing and imprisonment of “alleged immigrants and others” for “minor and serious government crimes.”
Although the Texas governor defends the need for these new proposals to “reduce illegal migration,” Human Rights Watch “does not know that Operation Lone Star stopped migration.”
In fact, the organization said it has “empowered rogue actors who profit from heightened fears about migrants and blocked or prevented people from seeking asylum in the United States, which is their right under U.S. law.”
Consequently, the same statement explains that Operation Lone Star benefited criminal cartels while “its benefits are magnified when migrants must attempt to enter the United States through remote and deadly terrain.”
From April 2022 to March 2023, 5,164 people were charged with crimes. smuggling and constant smugglingAccording to the Texas Public Safety Reporting System of the Texas Institute of Justice.
Currently, neither of these two crimes carry mandatory minimum sentences, although an analysis by the ACLU of Texas found that the average prison sentence for them is approximately one year.
One proposal seeks to establish a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years for human smuggling and maintaining a “stash house.”
HRW analyzed publicly available data on people detained on smuggling charges and admitted to Operation Lone Star processing centers in Val Verde and Jim Hogg counties between June 2021 and July 2023.
He came to the conclusion that almost 80% of people are prosecuted for smuggling They were US citizens. with an average age of 26 years; About 13% of those charged with smuggling were between the ages of 18 and 19, and at least 12 children between the ages of 14 and 17 were arrested or charged with smuggling during the same period.
Thus, “the mandatory minimums proposal could put thousands of young Texans in prison (…) for non-violent crimes, many of them simply for driving migrants, forcing them to serve at least 10 years in prison,” explained Texas lawyer Rio . Grande Legal Aid, Christine Etter.
“This is really scandalous. “Murder and rape charges don’t even carry those mandatory minimum sentences,” he said.
Etter confirmed that “the vast majority are college-age young adults or high school students” and that the vast majority are young Texans recruited through social media to transport people from border communities to other places in Texas.
In this regard, the lawyer assured that, given the breadth of this law, it allows a person to be held accountable for the very fact of carrying a passenger in his vehicle if the police believe that they had the intention of hiding the person. that man.
“In fact, most of our clients are not hiding or hiding people, but are being arrested for taking unregistered people in their cars to the border area.
“Sentencing people charged with non-violent driving to a mandatory minimum sentence of ten years in prison is so disproportionate and devoid of any sense of justice or fairness.”
On the other hand, defense attorneys noted that Operation Lone Star also led to widespread racial and ethnic profiling in border communities.
“We know that mandatory minimums are empirically problematic because they take away judges’ discretion (at the sentencing stage),” said Amruta Jindal, chief defense attorney for the Lubbock County Public Defenders’ operation Lone Star.
“People will collide 10 years in prison for a specific mistake, because they were attracted to social networks. “Operation Lone Star has already conducted numerous racial profiling studies, and I fear that the number of unwarranted stops will increase.”
“The vast majority of smuggling-related arrests were the result ofillegal and unconstitutional identificationsEtter added.
“Some of the reasons for the stops were Austin plates or what they ate in the car.
“Cars were searched because they allegedly “smelled like immigrants”“. (Europe Press)
Source: Aristegui Noticias
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