The Eagle Pass City Council voted Tuesday to revoke the private status of Shelby Park, thereby ending the ability of the Texas Department of Public Safety to manage unlawful migrants crossing the border.
Shelby Park was a common spot for unlawful migrants to attempt to cross the border since it’s near the bank of the Rio Grande River.
Rolando Salinas, mayor of Eagle Pass, signed an affidavit in June that declared the park private, meaning that DPS and Border Patrol officials had the authority to detain and jail unlawful migrants, per Fox San Antonio.
With the park’s private status revoked, DPS and Border Patrol officials are prevented from continuing this practice.
Although the motion passed almost unanimously, strong opinions have been expressed on either side of the debate.
Chris Russo, president of Texans for Strong Borders, said the decision would allow the border crisis to worsen.
“In effect, this cowardly action by local officials serves to hamstring current operations under Operation Lone Star by attempting to ensure that any illegal alien who gets past the initial line of barriers near Shelby Park will be turned over to Border Patrol and later released into the interior of our country,” said Russo, per Texas Scorecard.
Victor Escalon, the South Texas director for DPS, agreed with the statement and said that the crisis will continue to escalate without DPS officials allowed to take action.
“Our concern is today it’s 1,000 [unlawful crossings],” said Escalon, according to Texas Scorecard. “Tomorrow, it’s 4,000, 5,000, and so on and so forth. We have a crisis here in the community. So, we want to avoid that. And the way to avoid that is by our presence.”
But Robie Flores of the Eagle Pass Border Coalition disagreed and said that DPS officials had disrupted what should be a public area.
“It’s a public park and it belongs to our city. That has allowed DPS to come in and invade the space that is a community gathering space,” said Flores, per The Messenger News.
Amrutha Jindal, chief defender of Operation Lone Star Indigent Defense, said that many unlawful border-crossers are not causing issues for the state and should not be viewed as criminals.
“[Nelson Barnes, director of the Operation Lone Star Prosecution Unit is] assuming that people who come into the county are going to be committing crimes. That’s not what we are seeing,” she said, per Texas Public Radio.
The motion comes following the state’s decision to implement buoys along the Rio Grande to prevent unlawful migrants from entering the country.
The buoys have become a major point of contention between the State of Texas and the federal government, as the federal government announced that it will be suing Texas over the decision, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
Despite the lawsuit, Gov. Greg Abbott said he would take the case to the Supreme Court if necessary.
“As it concerns our ability to succeed in that lawsuit, I think it’s very clear,” said Abbott, per The Dallas Express. “First of all, the statute on which the lawsuit is based does not seem to apply to the buoys that are at issue.”
“But second, even if it does, I believe that the constitutional right of the state of Texas to secure our border and to defend our sovereignty supersedes any statute,” he continued.
