EL PASO Texas (Border Report) – El Paso’s congresswoman says she supports efforts to have the Texas Department of Public Safety troopers suspend high-speed chases of vehicles suspected of being involved in migrant smuggling.
El Paso County on Monday discussed drafting such a resolution based on staff research documenting numerous crashes in urban areas – some of them fatal and initiated for routine traffic violations.
“It’s important for everyone to understand how dangerous high-speed chases are in urban areas. That’s why most law enforcement agencies prohibit (such chases),” U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-Texas, said on Tuesday. “Unfortunately, the Texas Department of Public Safety is using high-speed chases on a regular basis. That puts everyday El Pasoans at a very high risk.”
Escobar said residents have contacted her office to complaint about unreimbursed property damage allegedly caused during a DPS chase and some who allege their civil rights were violated or that they were arrested without due cause by the state police.
“I support the County Commissioners Court in their efforts to bring this issue to light and to ask the State of Texas to do what every other major law enforcement agency has done and use other methods to achieve the same goals they want to achieve,” Escobar said during a news briefing with reporters.
DPS high-speed pursuits have shot up in the past three years. County officials attribute that to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star (OLS), a multibillion-dollar public safety initiative whose stated purpose is to keep Texans safe amid increased illegal migration through the state.
This map from El Paso County government shows the location of documented chases initiated by Texas DPS in the urban sprawl.
As of the close of the 2024 fiscal year last September, Operation Lone Star had contributed to 523,000 apprehensions of migrants and 47,800 criminal arrests, according to the state’s official website.
Border Report contacted DPS for comment and is awaiting a response. Previously, state officials said pursuits are a last resort to contain reckless drivers as well as smugglers who could be holding the migrants for ransom or for sex-trafficking purposes. A DPS spokesman earlier said troopers typically terminate a pursuit if traffic gets heavy or they approach school zones or other public areas.
Escobar added she is not against law enforcement doing its job, but emphasized there are less dangerous ways to go about it.
“I think a lot of El Pasoans don’t understand there are other ways Texas DPS can engage in order to achieve a similar outcome,” she said.
Local civil rights organizations have called for both the state and federal immigration agencies to rely more on technology – security cameras, air surveillance – to track suspected smugglers as they pick up migrants at the border wall and in the nearby New Mexico desert, then drive them to stash houses in El Paso.
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