DPS officials have separated some two dozen families in recent weeks, arresting fathers on trespassing charges and holding them in state custody while transferring their spouses and kids into federal government custody, according to story.
The result is that some of those fathers haven't seen their families since they were apprehended at or near the border, Hearst reports, citing spouses and attorneys representing the migrants.
The separation of families harkens back to the humanitarian crisis that erupted at the border in 2018, when Donald Trump’s administration enacted a “zero tolerance” policy under which thousands of children were torn away from their parents. The move, ultimately discontinued, resulted in an international outcry.
It's unclear under what policy Texas officials are separating families.
Neither Republican Gov. Greg Abbott nor any other high-ranking state official has publicly discussed a family separation policy, according to Hearst's reporting. State troopers working under the auspices of the governor’s $4.4 billion Operation Lone Star border crackdown are believed to have been instructed to keep families together so they can make asylum claims.
However, at some point during the past month, that appears to have changed. Kristin Etter, an attorney and special project director at Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, told Hearst she knows of at least 26 arrests of fathers who were then separated from their families from July 10-14 in the border town of Eagle Pass.
In comments to Hearst, a DPS spokesperson acknowledged that the department has been separating fathers from their families. But, unlike under Trump, troopers haven't separating children from their mothers, the spokesperson added.
“There have been instances in which DPS has arrested male migrants on state charges who were with their family when the alleged crime occurred,” DPS spokesperson Travis Considine said. “Children and their mothers were never separated, but instead turned over to the U.S. Border Patrol together.”
Nevertheless, Hearst reports that members of several families who were separated from their fathers are traumatized.
The report about family separations comes as the Department of Justice has stepped into a legal battle with Abbott over his hardline border security policies. Last week, the department sued the state over its placement of floating barriers and razor wire in the Rio Grande in a bid to prevent migrants from crossing.
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