Operation Linebacker Funds Working Against Immigrants More Than Criminals

The El Paso Times has a great story out this week on how federal and state funds—including those from Operation Linebacker—are being misused by law enforcement:

The reports show Operation Linebacker, the program one state security official called the “cornerstone” of Texas border safety efforts, caught suspected undocumented immigrants seven times more often than it apprehended criminals.

State Sen. Eliot Shapleigh (D-El Paso) says the statistics indicate the project is off track:

Some lawmakers said the numbers raise serious concerns about whether the sheriffs warrant the $100 million Perry wants legislators to allocate for future border security efforts.

“To me, the statistics say that the operation has been, in effect, an immigration operation, not a serious crime operation,” said state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso.

Some lawmakers and activists also worried the security operations could be creating an atmosphere of fear in immigrant communities, causing victims to stop reporting crimes because they are afraid to be deported.

“We in the Legislature don’t mind providing them help to fight crime and target drug smugglers, but certainly the money is not intended for them to enforce immigration laws,” said state Sen. Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa, D-McAllen.

At issue are more than $10 million in federal grants that Rick Perry allocated to sheriff’s departments in 16 Texas border counties. Statistics show the vast majority of incidents dealt with immigration:

Perry gave border county sheriffs about $10 million in federal grants for the operation. The money was to fund overtime and equipment for sheriffs’ deputies to patrol rural border areas the understaffed U.S. Border Patrol often cannot.

The reports indicate sheriffs’ deputies in the 16 counties requested Border Patrol assistance with 4,756 undocumented immigrants. Nearly a quarter of those were stopped in El Paso County.

During the same period, according to the reports, border sheriffs arrested 702 individuals, 179 of them on drug charges.

On average, for every one arrest the sheriffs made, analysis indicated they reported seven undocumented immigrants to the Border Patrol.

This is not surprising. It’s particularly interesting given that Perry’s campaign commercials talked in such detail about the blight of crime on the border, but that these funds are being used more for immigration enforcement than more violent crime.

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