Groups Ask DOJ to Use Title VI to Counter "Operation Lone Star"

Jolie McCullough, The Texas Tribune, Dec. 15, 2021

"More than 100 immigrant and civil rights advocacy groups have joined the call for the federal government to intervene in Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security initiative, which skirts federal jurisdiction over immigration law and locks up in Texas prisons migrants suspected of illegally crossing the border.

Ten national and statewide groups, led by the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, the Texas Civil Rights Project and the Texas Fair Defense Project, filed a 50-page complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice asking it to cut off large swaths of Texas’ federal funding in response to Abbott’s Operation Lone Star. The advocates argued Abbott’s system, which arrests migrants on state trespassing charges on private property near the border, results in discrimination based on a person’s race and national origin and further encourages a racist and xenophobic political environment.

“The state of Texas and participating counties have created and are carrying out what is in reality a system of state immigration enforcement that targets Black and Brown– primarily Latinx– individuals for prosecution and enhanced punishment,” the complaint stated."