TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Ron DeSantis has spent millions of dollars this year to support Texas in deterring migrants from entering the country through its border security initiative. Now, some of Texas’ efforts are coming under scrutiny amid reports that officers were ordered to push small children and nursing babies back into the Rio Grande.
On July 3, a state trooper with the Texas Department of Public Safety reported actions taken as part of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star had veered into the “in humane (sic),” according to emails reviewed by the Times/Herald and first reported by the Houston Chronicle.
The state trooper, identified as Nicholas Wingate, a medic for the Texas Department of Public Safety, reported seeing a 19-year-old pregnant woman having a miscarriage after being caught in razor wire in Eagle Pass; a 4-year-old girl trying to cross the razor wire being pressed back by Texas National Guard soldiers “due to the orders given to them”; and a 15-year-old boy who broke his right leg after the wire forced him into a part of the river that was unsafe to travel.
The wire was installed along the Rio Grande by the Texas National Guard and the Texas Department of Public Safety to “deter smuggling between the ports of entry and not to injure migrants,” Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw said in an email. In a separate email, McCraw acknowledged the wire has resulted in migrants needing “elevated medical attention.”
Travis Considine, a spokesperson for the Texas Department of Public Safety, said the agency is investigating the allegations made by the state trooper and that Texas does not have “a directive or policy that instructs Troopers to withhold water for migrants or push them back into the river.”
The incidents outlined by the state trooper occurred while he was stationed in Eagle Pass from June 24 to July 1 as part of Operation Lone Star.
Florida’s role in Texas
DeSantis supported Abbott’s Operation Lone Star by sending hundreds of state personnel and state resources to the southern border in Texas in June — and his office has noted that state law enforcement officers have continued to aid Texas officers at the border as recently as this week.
However, it remains unclear whether Florida personnel engaged in any of the Texas directives that are under investigation.
DeSantis administration officials did not respond when asked to comment on the concerns raised by the Texas state trooper, and did not say whether Florida officers had followed such directives when they were in Texas.
Instead, Jeremy Redfern, DeSantis’ press secretary, responded by issuing a statement criticizing President Joe Biden’s border policies.
“President Biden’s abdication continues to undercut the rule of law, leading to dangerous actions by human smugglers and cartels. This week, FHP [Florida Highway Patrol] assisted in arresting a criminal alien that threw a 1-year-old baby into the Rio Grande River,” Redfern said. “Governor DeSantis will continue to do everything within his authority to fight against Biden’s Border Crisis.”
Get insights into Florida politics
Subscribe to our free Buzz newsletter
You’re all signed up!
Want more of our free, weekly newsletters in your inbox? Let’s get started.Explore all your options
As a presidential candidate, DeSantis has centered his political messaging on the idea that states should take action in whatever ways they can in response to “failed” federal immigration policies.
In late June, he held a campaign event in Eagle Pass to unveil a sweeping plan to overhaul the nation’s immigration system.
At that event, DeSantis vowed to use deadly force against suspected drug traffickers at the border.
“We’re going to create adequate rules of engagement, if somebody were breaking into your house to do something bad you would respond with force,” DeSantis said. “Yet why don’t we do that at the southern border?”
He said suspected drug traffickers would end up “stone-cold dead” and that if he were elected president, his administration would “fully deputize” state and local law enforcement offices in states like Texas to arrest and deport migrants back to Mexico.
A day before the campaign trip, in Eagle Pass, the Texas state trooper reported that officers “were given orders to push” migrants, including several small children and babies who were nursing, back into the water to go back to Mexico.
“With the very real potential of exhausted people drowning. We made contact with command again and expressed our concern and we were given the order to tell them to go to Mexico and get in our vehicle and leave,” the Texas trooper wrote in the email, which added that state troopers then coordinated with Border Patrol agents and “got the people processed and taken care of.”
Florida spends millions in Texas
In May, Florida was asked to help Texas officers “deter, detect and interdict criminal activity” along its 1,250-mile southern border, under the Emergency Management Assistance Compact, a mutual-aid partnership among all states.
During the effort, Texas gave Florida state law enforcement officers and guardsmen “the same arrest and law enforcement powers, rights, and privileges while operating within the state limits of Texas as are ordinarily afforded law enforcement forces of the State of Texas,” records show. And they were to operate in locations that included the Rio Grande Valley sector, records show.
In June, the governor spent $3.3 million to send up to 650 state personnel to support those efforts through June 10, records show.
Under the direction of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, which is part of the DeSantis administration, the Florida National Guard began to support Texas’ Operation Lone Star in May, Amelia Johnson, a spokesperson for the state agency, said last week.
The $3.3 million is associated with operational costs of Florida National Guard support to Texas, Johnson said.
Generally, the state that sends help is reimbursed by the state that is asking for help. At least that is the case outlined in the Emergency Management Assistance Compact’s website. But Abbott made clear in his request that Texas was requesting assisting states to “absorb associated costs with this mission in support of the entire country,” records show.
Overall this year, DeSantis has spent at least $15.2 million in the first half of the year to address “illegal migration” at the Texas border and in South Florida. Records show the money spent was part of a $500 million Emergency Preparedness and Response Fund that the Florida Legislature approved last year to give the governor direct access to cash when he declares emergencies.