You recently graduated high school and plan to pursue a secondary degree. The future is a mix of hopefulness and uncertainty. Money is tight for you and your family. As you’re perusing Snapchat, a direct message pops up on your screen: “Me and some friends need to take a ride from one place to the next.” They offer $1,200 and to cover gas costs.Attorneys told us that is the scenario that many low-income young men of color are facing in Austin, San Antonio, Houston, and other Texas cities.
However, the reach of Abbott’s initiative does not end with undocumented migrants. Many Texans, most of whom are U.S. citizens, are staring down felony charges for human smuggling, all without having ever crossed the border. Afrom Abbott’s office said Operation Lone Star, which launched in March 2021, has resulted in 35,100 felony charges.
“They assume that smuggling has to do with going over the border or bringing people over the border,” said attorney Sylvia Delgado, who estimates that she has represented around 100 clients charged with smuggling, with quite a few from Austin. “Smuggling, you imagine – what I always imagined – is: I go over the border, I bring back a bunch of gold jewelry or something of value and I don’t want to have to pay a tax on it, so I just wear it and pretend I’ve owned it my whole life.
“Yes, when I was about to pick them up, there was no house or nothing. There was just a big old fence,” he said. “The officers, they jumped the fence, and they found illegals and they said they were just going to put them on me because they thought I was picking them up.”According to defense attorneys, Perrow’s case seems to be consistent with a pattern of aggressive and sometimes questionable tactics used by law enforcement in the area. Affidavits shared with the“On 10/20/2023, I, Trooper R.
“You look like you’ve got brown people in your car, I’m going to follow you until I see you violate the law, a traffic law of some sort so that I can pull you over, which is allowed,” said Angelica Cogliano, an Austin-based criminal defense attorney who is partners with Miro at Cogliano and Miro. She said that one of her clients, who is Cuban but living in Austin legally, was pulled over while driving a friend who was also here legally.
Garcia Grewal and her family started to notice the police presence sometime before 2022 when her dad dropped her mom off at the Monday flea market and went to walk their dog at Shelby Park – a part of their typical routine. “DPS came up to him and said, ‘You can’t be here,’” she said. “He’s like, ‘Why?’... So they’re like, ‘This is for Operation Lone Star, you can’t be here.’”
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