By Nick Braune
Mid-Valley Town Crier
by permission
On Monday morning I attended a press conference called by the South Texas Civil Rights Project in front of the Edinburg, Texas Border Patrol office. (It’s a military-like fortress, with ugly fencing and heavy gates.)
The event, timed to mark the beginning of the Rio Grande Valley’s infamous “hurricane season,” was organized to demand that the Border Patrol make public their policy about hurricane evacuations: Specifically, in the event of a hurricane evacuation, will the Border Patrol be checking evacuees’ IDs, trying to figure out who is in the country legally and who is not?
If Homeland Security (DHS) does not tell the public whether it will check IDs, then many undocumented immigrants and their family members can be expected to remain in the Valley in the event of a hurricane, risking being killed by the flooding to avoid deportation or imprisonment.
Chanting “What do we want? Answers!” those organizing the press conference demanded to know which DHS values more: capturing undocumented immigrants or protecting human life? Unfortunately, the answer is pretty clearly the former. Last summer, the Border Patrol refused lawyers’ requests that it make its hurricane evacuation policy public.
In an area of the country where there have been many terrifying Border Patrol and ICE operations on immigrant neighborhoods and where the border is highly militarized, a near police state, a hurricane would be the kind of disaster the DHS could exploit to round up even more immigrants and create more fear. (If you’re interested in the connection between disasters and police states, Naomi Klein’s book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism is a fun read. And it has interesting comments on Katrina.)
The press conference was sponsored by the South Texas Civil Rights Project, LUPE (La Uni*n del Pueblo Entero/Uni*n of the Entire People, the community activist arm of the United Farm Workers Uni*n), a pro bono immigration lawyers’ group (Texas RioGrande Legal Aid), and Brownsville-based organization CASA (Coalition of Amigos in Solidarity and Action). Other groups nationally have joined in signing a letter to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, demanding that the Border Patrol release its hurricane evacuation policy to the public.
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This is not the first time that the Valley’s vulnerability to hurricanes has been a major topic of concern among social justice activists here. A number of hurricane-related controversies have arisen over the last couple of years.
Last summer, in the rush to complete the construction of the U.S./Mexico border wall in the Valley before the new presidential administration could take office, some levies along the border were severely weakened — at the height of hurricane season, no less — to allow the wall to be more swiftly built. During that time, the Valley was left especially vulnerable to a potential hurricane disaster of catastrophic proportions.
The construction of the border wall also raised concerns, which DHS has ignored, that in the event of a hurricane, the rising water, blocked on one side by the wall, would be pushed back into Mexico, spelling disaster for some Mexican border towns. (Along much of the border, the wall is not just a “fence,” but is composed of high concrete or metal panels, appearing much like the wall in Palestine.) A recent flood in Mexico has already caused controversy, as the wall “protecting” the U.S. clearly exacerbated the flooding damage in Mexico.
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There was another protest event last week that I would have attended — I was tied up working — a vigil in front of Channel 48. The vigilers were hoping for press coverage on this channel — denouncing Gov. Rick Perry for executing his 200th person in the state since he has been in office. Perry even beat George Bush by about 50 executions.
No state rivals Texas in executions; Texas has executed someone about every two weeks this year, but several other states with huge cities (New York, California, Illinois) have not executed anyone this year or last year. California is bigger than Texas in population and has a fair share of serious crimes, but it has only executed 13 people since the death penalty was restored in 1976, while Texas has executed 439. (Want to hear the score again? New York 0; California 13; Texas 439. As my students say, Go figure.
Quick fact: in 2008, 92% of all executions were in southern states with a slave-owning tradition.
Another fact: the Supreme Court in 2005 outlawed something condemned by international law: executing people for crimes committed at 17 or younger. But before it was outlawed, the last five Americans who were executed for offenses committed while they were still children, were executed under Perry, and four of those five were black.
MoPress 
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