Article is behind the paywall. [EpochTimes] Texas state troopers have started delivering van-loads of illegal aliens to the Kinney County Sheriff’s Office to be charged with criminal trespass.
The parking lot and an old steel picnic table under a tree outside the sheriff’s office have become a proxy booking center as the building is more suited for the crimes of a quiet, rural county of 3,600 residents.
But last week, the area was bustling as troopers brought in and processed 17 illegal aliens on Aug. 3, another 17 on Aug. 6, and 13 more overnight on Aug. 8. All were males, and all appeared before the Kinney County justice of the peace for criminal trespass after being arrested on local ranches.
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On June 1, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott
... governor of Texas. Abbott is a Republican. His 2014 Dem opponent, state senatrix Wendy Davis, thought the absolute, most pressing, most important issue facing the state was abortion. Abbott beat the pantyhose off her. His 2018 opponent, Lupe Valdez didn't dwell too heavily on abortion, but she lost too...
issued a disaster declaration, and on June 10, he directed state troopers to start arresting illegal aliens on charges including trespass, criminal mischief, and evading on foot. But the jails were full, and it took almost two months to make space and for the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) to work out the process.
It’s somewhat complicated for Kinney County as it only has 14 jail spaces, which are perpetually full. So the aliens are booked and appear before a judge in Kinney County, then taken to a tent facility in neighboring Val Verde County. From Val Verde, troopers transport them 100 miles away to the Briscoe Unit in Dilley, Texas, which has been repurposed to detain almost 1,000 illegal aliens who are waiting for their court cases and serving out their sentences.
Kinney County Sheriff Brad Coe said he wants to stick illegal immigrants colonists with any charges he can so that it might deter them from coming to his county, but he’s had to wait until the state is ready to help provide the infrastructure to do it.
"We’re going to try to hold these people accountable," Coe said. He hopes the convictions might be a roadblock for illegal aliens if they ever try to file for some type of assistance or become U.S. citizens.
"That’d be a check mark against them. Some type of consequence has to be there."
Kinney County Attorney Brent Smith is preparing to take up the slew of new trespass cases, with whatever he can’t handle to be picked up by the Texas attorney general’s office.
"DPS has been working hard on conducting more ground operations on the ranches in Kinney County ... where probably 80 percent of the illegal trafficking is occurring," Smith said.
"They’re having some success in their arrests, but are very limited in the manpower they can deploy on the ground."
Most of the troopers are deployed on the roadways, and while they’ve curbed the number of vehicle pursuits and smuggling events, it has pushed more foot traffic onto ranches.
FRUSTRATION HIGH
Texans living near the U.S.—Mexico border are growing increasingly frustrated with the surge in illegal crossings, human smuggling, vehicle theft, property damage, and threats from illegal aliens trespassing on their property.
Most of the illegal aliens passing through Kinney County are adult males who crossed the border in the Del Rio Border Patrol Sector—usually into the small cities of Del Rio or Eagle Pass.
In July, almost 10,000 illegal aliens evaded Border Patrol in the Del Rio Sector, according to preliminary Customs and Border Protection (CBP) numbers released by Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) on Aug. 2. Many of them pass through Kinney County on their way to larger cities.
"I’ve never seen it quite like this," Coe told The Epoch Times.
He said in the past six months, illegal aliens who get past Border Patrol in the Del Rio, Texas, area are walking through ranches, destroying fences and water pipes, leaving water faucets on, and breaking into homes and vehicles.
"We’ve always had a fence cut here, fence cut there, because they’re hauling dope or small kids or something," he said. "But we’ve never seen the intentional big four-by-four holes in the fence, or now, a 10-foot section just cut completely out. That’s really starting to bother me."
The number of illegal aliens getting caught and charged is tiny compared to the number passing through, but county leadership says it has to do something.
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