AUSTIN, Texas — An international human rights organization said Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R-TX) border security initiatives were to blame for dozens of fatalities that resulted from police pursuits of suspected human smuggling vehicles near the border with Mexico.
A Human Rights Watch report published Monday alleged that state and local police deployed to more than 250 Texas counties under Operation Lone Star have engaged in thousands of vehicle chases that led to 74 deaths and 189 injuries between March 2021 and July 2023.
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“Operation Lone Star puts undue pressure on law enforcement to chase cars, sometimes with very little basis, resulting in deaths of drivers, passengers, and even bystanders,” Norma Herrera, a Texas-based consultant to Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.
Public data obtained by HRW found that 5,200 police pursuits took place in that 29-month period, with an average of 1 death for every 70 pursuits.
But the percentage of deaths was small compared to the number of people pulled over, the Washington Examiner found in a separate investigation earlier this year that examined how many illegal immigrants have slipped past Border Patrol, only to be caught later by state police while on the road.
Texas Highway Patrol officers, known as troopers, made 8,721 traffic stops that involved a vehicle suspected of transporting illegal immigrants from the border to deeper areas of the United States between Jan. 1, 2021, and Dec. 31, 2022, according to data produced through the Washington Examiner's 2022 public information request of Texas Department of Public Safety records. Some stops were the result of pursuits, while other stops were the result of a driver choosing to pull over and not give chase.
During the traffic stops, the state troopers discovered an additional 39,100 illegal immigrants whom smugglers had attempted to transport from stash houses and fields near the border to cities such as Houston and San Antonio.
More than 47,000 people were encountered in traffic stops conducted under Operation Lone Star in the 24-month period that the Washington Examiner investigated. In the HRW data that went an additional five months beyond that time frame, HRW concluded that 74 people were killed in relation to the thousands of traffic stops.
Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX), a border lawmaker whose district includes 800 miles of Texas, strongly denounced HRW's blaming of police for the 74 deaths.
“High-speed chases are all too common across border communities. Many of them have resulted in the loss of innocent lives. Our law enforcement officers are not to blame for doing their duty to protect the public — the blame lies solely with the criminals engaging in illegal activity resulting in these chases," Gonzales said in a statement to the Washington Examiner. "The root of the issue is that human smugglers are not being given a punishment that fits the crime."
HRW, a left-leaning nonprofit group, wrote in the report that police engaged in high-speed chases because, in 97% of cases, the driver was speeding, had violated traffic signals, or committed a different misdemeanor while behind the wheel.
Out of the 74 deaths, roughly 10% were residents, and the remainder of those killed were people who were driving and refused to pull over for police while smuggling immigrants who illegally crossed the border. Human smugglers often pack sedans and pickup trucks with 10 to 20 people inside, resulting in mass fatalities if the driver attempts to run from police and crashes while speeding.
Texas DPS referred the Washington Examiner to comments Director Steve McCraw made in an interview last week with the New York Times, in which he said not pursuing a vehicle would result in "rewarding the Mexican cartels" that facilitate human smuggling into the U.S.
“Quite frankly, I think that’s a far better approach as opposed to capitulating to the cartels,” McCraw said.
Gonzales said the laws ought to be tougher to target people who give chase in the first place. Gonzales and Rep. Juan Ciscomani (R-AZ), another border lawmaker, introduced a bill in September that would increase the penalty for drivers who lead law enforcement supporting a border security initiative on a high-speed chase.
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"If our legislation gets signed into law, failure to yield to Border Patrol and law enforcement would be a felony crime," Gonzales said.
Abbott did not reply to requests for comment.