Texas State Troopers — the Sturmabteilung of Texas Governor Greg Abbott — or possibly the Texas National Guard — beat a Honduran man to death on March 17, 2024 in the city of El Paso. The Honduran, one of many attempting to cross the Ciudad Juárez-El Paso border at Border Security Marker 39, was seeking political asylum in the U.S. and made a crossing of the Rio Grande. According to those who were with him, all present were pushed back to the other side of the river by repeated pummelings received at the hands of Abbot’s State Troopers. Those seeking asylum in the U.S. must first be physically present in the country, which has become as good as a death sentence for asylum-seekers crossing the southern border.
In March of 2021, the gray-haired fascist martinet in the Texas governor’s office started “Operation Lone Star.” Despite sounding like a bad Vin Diesel movie, Operation Lone Star is a declaration of a state of emergency along the Texas border which empowers the Department of Public Safety of Texas to deploy military force. Abbott’s government claims some 500,000 asylum-seekers and migrants have been expelled from the border since 2021 as a result. This past January, Lone Star-deputized militants seized a federal U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint at Shelby Park in Eagle Pass, Texas, and expelled the federal agents. As expected, the flaccid Biden administration has done nothing to return it to federal control. 14 other extreme-reactionary states have sent their national guard to Texas to participate in Lone Star, including Arkansas, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, and Florida.
The Honduran, whose identity has not yet been released, was reportedly beaten so badly that his nasal cavity collapsed. He died in the long agonizing night between March 16 and March 17, prohibited from acquiring medical assistance in El Paso for want of citizenship. Another member of the group described the conditions in the migrant-complex, partially funded by Biden government money, at which they were held: “The man (who died) had been here for more than a week and they gave him nothing to eat, no water, no one to help him, no family. He did not have water, food, we had been here for more than a week without food.” This witness said of the Texas National Guard, “They hit us, they shoot us, they take us away with those things they have.”
Operation Lone Star, like Atlanta’s Cop City, is a paramilitary endeavor designed to train and equip fascist foot soldiers. The Texas National Guard and State Troopers have become the colonial police of the south, and are empowered to murder with impunity. Only the organization of the people of El Paso and Ciudad Juárez can challenge them. The time has come to stop accepting the rampant abuses of Abbott’s stormtroopers and put an end to them. As we watch U.S. tax dollars at work devastating Gaza and making billions for weapons manufacturers, we are forced to watch them also beating our brothers and sisters at the borders until they can no longer breathe.
Enough is enough! We call on all Communists, socialists, and fellow-travelers of El Paso to form a defense league, to prepare to guard their communities and those at the border, to counter Abbott’s fascist gangs! We cannot sit silent! The time has come to act.
