“Danger Ahead. If you cross into Texas illegally, you will regret it forever.” “How much did you pay to have your daughter raped? Many girls are raped by the coyotes you hire.” With messages like these, displayed on billboards in Mexico and Central American countries, the Republican governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, seeks to persuade the thousands of migrants attempting to enter the United States unlawfully to “stop their journey from even beginning.” The billboards, Abbott said on Thursday at a press conference to announce the new strategy, will serve to warn migrants of the dangers they are exposed to when crossing the border, especially sexual assaults on women and children: “Your wife and daughter will pay for the trip with their bodies. Coyotes lie. Don’t put your family at risk.,” warns another one of the messages.
“This is tough medicine, but we don’t want any more rape trees in Texas,” Abbott said, alluding to the practice of sexually assaulting migrants and hanging their undergarments on a tree as trophies. “For migrants who are about to cross the border illegally, we have billboards with warning messages […] from Matamoros to Juárez and in many other places in between,” the governor said during a press conference held on Thursday at a ranch in the border city of Eagle Pass, surrounded by billboards that will be part of the campaign. To ensure that as many migrants as possible get the message, the campaign will be run in Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Arabic, and other languages and dialects. The governor has not offered an exact figure on the cost of this campaign, but said it will be about “one hundred thousand dollars.”
“The message is: don’t risk making a dangerous trip only to be arrested and deported,” Abbott said. This new security strategy is in addition to Operation Lone Star, which began in March 2021 and which, according to data released this week by the governor’s office, has resulted in the detention of more than 529,000 migrants without visas or other lawful documents to enter the United States, including 49,400 “criminal arrests.” The Republican governor has said that he will work closely with Donald Trump, who takes office on January 20, to continue along these lines: “We will continue to aggressively arrest immigrants who enter Texas illegally and work with the Trump administration to deport them.” Texas has already offered a tract of land to the president-elect to act as a base of operations for the mass deportations that the Republican intends to carry out.
Texas’ southern border is around 1,242 miles long, accounting for two-thirds of the entire U.S.-Mexico border. A year ago, Eagle Pass was one of the busiest crossing points for illegal migrants. The Texas National Guard installed razor wire, stacked shipping containers, and erected other barriers that injure migrants as they try to get around them. According to reports from Human Rights Watch, these initiatives have caused injuries and deaths of migrants, as well as abuse and harassment of organizations that provide them with humanitarian assistance. The Border Patrol, controlled by the federal government, has complained that the razor wire cuts off their access to the Rio Grande and closes off the spaces they need to process new arrivals.
Abbott, who has accused President Joe Biden of creating a “war zone” on the border, has argued that his new strategy seeks to refute a narrative allegedly spread by drug traffickers, criminal organizations, and the State of Mexico itself to present migration to the border as a safe journey. At the press conference, Abbott was accompanied by Rosa Luna, executive director of the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault, and the owners of the ranch where the press conference was held, Kimberly and Martin Wall.
Following the governor’s presentation, Kimberly Wall shared raw anecdotes of at least three rapes and two murders that occurred on the borders of her ranch, sometimes right in front of her door. “Many women have been beaten and raped. I know my husband has found three different rape trees and burned them down. You don’t know if you’ll be attacked by one of the men hiding in the brush,” she said.
The Republican governor has insisted that Texas will do “whatever it takes” to stem the flow of undocumented migrants across the Mexican border and offered support to president-elect Trump to cooperate in completing the border wall and deporting as many undocumented migrants as possible. When asked how these policies could exacerbate the separation of mixed-status families, he repeated the message coined by Tom Homan, chosen as Trump’s “border czar”: if everyone is deported, the family will not be separated.
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