The misuse of police against student and faculty protesters in Texas was perhaps the most egregious example from across the nation.
It is also a reminder that unchecked abuses carried out at the border often foreshadow abuses of people living in the US interior. And like the students, migrants also continue to pay a high price for exercising their rights in Texas.
The Columbia University encampment of solidarity with the Palestinian people sparked a wave of student solidarity encampments across the nation, including at UT Austin. Student leaders said they objected to the “Israel-led, US-backed genocide in Gaza” and called for an immediate ceasefire as “Israel continues to bomb hospitals, schools, homes, and refugee camps while cutting off food and water to more than 2 million Palestinians in Gaza.” The protesters demanded UT Austin divest from Israeli companies they say are complicit in killing Palestinians.
While university administrators in some states called local police to break up protest encampments, on April 24, Abbott also deployed the Texas Department of Public Safety – the same heavily militarized state troopers used against asylum seekers and border residents under Operation Lone Star.
Abbott’s multibillion-dollar Operation Lone Star has violated the rights of migrants and Texans alike and is enforced primarily by troopers, who have been involved in injuries and deaths under the program, including at least 74 deaths from high-speed vehicle chases. Operation Lone Star has also included attacks on freedom of association and expression of groups providing support to migrants in Texas.
The deployment of state troopers to disperse the peaceful protest and arrest students and faculty is just one manifestation of the growing misuse of police in Texas. Under the program, the Department of Public Safety regularly carries out air and digital surveillance, racial profiling, unlawful arrests, and deadly high-speed chases; deaths and injuries have also resulted from its use of razor wire and buoys with saw blades.
At both the border and at UT Austin, Abbott’s use of state troopers represents a worrying expansion of state control of public spaces at the expense of rights and democracy.
Abbott deployed troopers with the explicit goal of arresting protesters, making sweeping statements that the protesters "belong in jail" and "should be expelled." Instead of respecting students' rights to assemble peacefully and to freedom of expression, law enforcement arrived 20 minutes before the protest even started and moved to disperse it less than an hour after it began, based on university officials' belief that protesters "intended to break... rules," and not in response to clear evidence of imminent violence or sustained disruption.
People and officials in Texas and across the US should become more invested in stopping abuses wherever they begin–in this case, at the border. That means acting immediately to hold the Department of Public Safety and other agencies, as well as political leaders who deploy them like Governor Abbott, accountable for abuses. Otherwise, people across the nation stand to pay the price.
Source: HRW