Soldiers Say Texas’ Border Patrol Mission Isn’t At All What It Seems

The concertina wire strung along several miles of Texas’ border with Mexico cuts through human flesh “like a knife.”

That’s according to one Texas Army National Guard soldier, who until recently served along the border under Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s “Operation Lone Star.”

Migrants seeking asylum in the United States “are moving fast” when they encounter the “c-wire” after crossing the Rio Grande into Texas, said Alex, who is being identified by a pseudonym because they’re worried about retaliation from superiors.

“Especially when people are just wading through the water, and their skin is wet, it just slices right though,” Alex said.

Alex is one of a handful of soldiers who spoke to HuffPost regarding their concerns about Operation Lone Star, which since 2021 has sent state law enforcement and Texas National Guard soldiers to patrol the border. The guardsmen acknowledged they were a minority among their colleagues and that many seem to support Abbott’s mission.

But the soldiers who spoke to HuffPost said they are worried that Operation Lone Star dehumanizes migrants, diverts resources from needed areas into “political theater,” and improperly gives soldiers and state troopers sway over the application of federal immigration law — a job legally reserved for federal law enforcement.

Most of these soldiers have served in or around Eagle Pass, a popular crossing point that, in for Operation Lone Star’s YouTube page. And it can cause significant physical harm, particularly after a tiring swim across the Rio Grande.

Accounts of the effects of Texas’ c-wire are numerous: Alex recalled one man with a laceration so severe there was “fat hanging out.” Last July, a state trooper working under Operation Lone Star wrote to a superior about a pregnant woman having a miscarriage after being found tangled up in the wire; he also recounted seeing a 4-year-old girl who’d attempted to go through the wire, only to be pushed back by Texas National Guard soldiers before passing out from heat exhaustion.

The state said soon after the trooper’s email leaked that it was investigating the report and Abbott’s office said no orders had been given “that would compromise the lives of those attempting to cross the border illegally.” Still, in January, a separate video from Eagle Pass showed Texas National Guard soldiers appearing to push migrants back across the razor wire, onto the banks of the Rio Grande.

Texas officials did not respond to HuffPost’s question about the video.

Also last year, USA Today reported on internal Department of Public Safety memos that detailed a mother and child transported to the hospital after being caught in the wire, in addition to reports of migrants needing staples to bind long gashes from the wire. The same paper published photos of a 5-year-old boy whose slashed leg had required four staples to hold shut. After the family had made it onto U.S. soil, they were ultimately processed by border agents and released with a court date.

“I don’t understand,” the boy’s mother told the paper, before referring to the concertina wire. “If they were just going to arrest us and let us go, why do they have to put all that up?”

Some soldiers have asked themselves that same question.

“At that point, they’re already on our side, they’ve crossed the river,” John told HuffPost, referring to migrants stuck between c-wire on Texas soil and the Rio Grande. “They’re not on this side of the razor wire, but … they’re in the U.S. What really does it matter if we take them here or at the bridge?”

“I think it was a show. I think it was a little bit of theater because if they really wanted us to effectively deter immigration, there’s a better way — like what we were doing [elsewhere along the border],” said John, who said his unit had been reassigned to Eagle Pass from another point at the border where they were tracking down drug and human smugglers. “Because once you left the Eagle Pass–Piedras Negras area, there wasn’t anybody [patrolling the border]. We were all basically in the town. So if you just kept going to where there’s nothing, then you could have easily crossed.”

Yet more wire seems to be headed toward the area: Abbott announced just a few days ago that more soldiers and concertina wire were on the way to Shelby Park. State Rep. Eddie Morales (D), who represents Eagle Pass in the state legislature, and whose district includes a longer stretch of border than anyone else’s, called the announcement “a band-aid on a problem that requires a lot more attention.”

The wire isn’t the only danger to migrants — several have drowned in the Rio Grande, which is known for its deceptively strong currents, especially after heavy rainfall. It’s also home to long lengths of buoy barrier deployed by the governor, currently the subject of a federal appeals court fight. Exact drowning numbers aren’t known, but in September 2022, well before Operation Lone Star focused on the area, Eagle Pass’s fire chief told NPR his area was seeing “basically a drowning a day.”

Human rights advocates say Operation Lone Star has heightened the risk in Eagle Pass.

“That’s what we’re seeing — a spike in the number of people who are drowning in the Rio Grande,” Bob Libal, a consultant for Human Rights Watch, told HuffPost. “I can attest … that it often occurs well within proximity to Texas officials who are either preventing federal authorities from accessing the border or who are not doing everything they can to look after migrant safety.”

In December, a video released by the civil rights organization Latino Justice PRLDEF showed a woman with a baby in her arms crying for help on the banks of the Rio Grande, as Texas National Guard soldiers watched from nearby boats, doing nothing. The pair eventually went back onto Mexican soil, and the Texas Military Department said in a statement that the duo had shown “no signs of medical distress, injury or incapacitation.” Then, last month, the bodies of three migrants were recovered in the Rio Grande near Shelby Park, and two others were rescued alive on the Mexican side of the river. During the search, Texas forces denied Border Patrol agents entry to the park; Texas later responded in a federal court filing that the migrants had drowned by the time federal agents alerted them, and that the feds had never referred to any ongoing “emergency” when they requested access to the park.

Multiple soldiers told HuffPost they’d been given orders to intervene in medical emergencies that threaten “life, limb or eyesight.” But that guidance comes with limits: After a National Guard member, Bishop Evans, died in 2022 while trying to save two drowning migrants, soldiers were discouraged from getting in the water.

A few weeks after Evans’ death, a Fox News reporter recorded the drowning death of a migrant — reportedly Calixto Rojas, a former radio host from Nicaragua, as National Guard soldiers and Mexican forces watched on. Since then, some soldiers have been given life rings that they can throw to migrants in distress in the water, but the concertina wire lining the banks of the Rio Grande seemingly rendered the rings ineffective.

“I don’t know how we would use that half the time because the c-wire was in the way,” John said of the floatation devices issued to soldiers. “There wasn’t really a good way to get down to the bank [without] getting cut up. And the rope would get caught up in the wire. I don’t know how they wanted us to use that.”

Despite their concerns about how Operation Lone Star has been executed, the soldiers involved in the program told HuffPost they believe the number of migrants and asylum seekers at the border in recent months does warrant a broader government response. Border Patrol alone, they said, did not have the manpower to keep track of everyone who wanted to enter the country, particularly with the backup at official ports of entry and the subsequent spillover elsewhere.

They also said there have been some positive changes. Work along the border used to largely come from soldiers who had been deployed there involuntarily — which came with serious logistical, pay and mental health issues. The deployment is now a largely voluntary one, staffed with young Texans who appreciate Operation Lone Star’s big paychecks.

Schuler, who said the risk of another involuntary activation played a role in his decision not to renew his contract, recalled seeing a young soldier crying when she was first being processed for her involuntary deployment to the border. When that time was up, he said, she volunteered to stay, having grown accustomed to the money.

Others even seem attracted to the border work specifically. When Schuler and several others were themselves set to end their time with the Guard, he recalled, the lieutenant colonel asked the group, “How many would extend if you could go down to the border mission?” Several hands went up, Schuler said.

And yet since Texas started freezing the feds out of Shelby Park, the federal-state relationship seems to have turned icy, soldiers say. There’s less chatter back and forth, and fewer calls for day-to-day assistance. At least once, Texas troopers threatened to criminally charge Border Patrol for cutting concertina wire, or as Abbott puts it, “Texas property.”

Then there’s the moral impact of the escalation in places like Eagle Pass, where soldiers posture for asylum seekers as if they’re expecting violent interactions.

“They’re not drug mules,” John said, recounting his final days at the border. He said he’d requested a move elsewhere in exchange for extending his service and was denied.

“They’re families. Children, women, pregnant women. It just sucked. I didn’t want to be in Eagle Pass. That’s why I left.”