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House Corrections met on September 27th to hear invited testimony regarding the existing and anticipated populations in state prisons located near the Texas-Mexico border. An archive of the hearing can be found here.

 

This report is intended to give you an overview and highlight of the discussions on the various topics taken up. It is not a verbatim transcript of the discussions but is based upon what was audible or understandable to the observer and the desire to get details out as quickly as possible with few errors or omissions.

 

Bryan Collier, Exec Director of TX Department of Criminal Justice – Neutral

  • Involvement with Operation Lonestar began initially as a financial transaction
  • Briscoe Unit made available to house 1,000 detainees; began on July 20th
  • Met correctional standards, but not jail standards; made changes that included adding AC, making fire and safety alterations, Zoom capabilities for attorneys, enhanced medical facility
  • 595 detainees at Briscoe; arrested and processed at Val Verde, magistrated via Zoom, and then transferred to Briscoe Unit; over 1200 attorney visits at facility
  • Segovia Unit and Lopez Unit also brought up to jail standards with similar changes; Segovia Unit reopened Sept. 11; 280 individuals at Segovia, pulled from Briscoe to go to Segovia
  • Overall capacity 136,000; 152,000 beds including idle capacity
  • Estimates point to the need for more than 130,000 beds
  • Received more appropriations from state to operate 3 units
  • Chairman Murr – Coordinate with Val Verde Sheriffs and what other agencies?
    • Department of Public Safety; staff at Val Verde; Kinney County has also had high volumes; TX military; TX Division of Emergency Management
    • Close coordination between agencies
  • Murr – Can you give us general timeline of how long each individual is at Val Verde before transfer to Briscoe?
    • Less than 24 hours
  • Murr – Do you have any goals on how long you hope people will stay in units?
    • Courts churning; the more sentencing, the faster they are processed; most serve about 30 days before release
  • Murr – If there is punishment that involves more days spent in jail, where do they go?
    • They serve duration of sentence at Briscoe Unit or similar unit
  • Murr – Currently using state resources to handle pre-judication resources because county jails are overflowing; now handling post-judication, have capacity to do this?
    • Yes
  • Murr – What charges are you seeing the most? Any U.S. citizens?
    • Some felonies in relation to smuggling, mainly criminal trespassing
    • A few U.S. citizens; predominately other citizens from 11 other countries
  • Burrow – What are the countries of origin?
    • In Briscoe: Cuba, 13; Ecuador, 3; El Salvador, 28; Haiti, 3; Honduras, 236; Mexico, 506; Nicaragua, 14; Republic of Congo, 1; Venezuela, 33; Belize, 1; Guatemala, 12; U.S., 32
    • Bulk criminal trespassing, U.S. citizens primarily charged with smuggling
  • White – How much was AC for Segovia Unit?
    • Annual cost half a million dollars a year, $50,000 to install; running off diesel generators that cost $200,000 a month
    • Hope to get to point where spending only $100,000 a month in electrical cost
  • White – During discharge process, how do you do handoff?
    • Notify ICE of every person taken in; identify their legality in country, ICE begins hearing process; by the time individual is released, ICE there to pick them up
    • At Briscoe and Segovia, ICE staff on location
    • If charge dismissed, individual returned to county of origin for border patrol to deal with
  • Slayton – What has it been like hiring staffing?
    • Overall, system staffing largest challenge; did increase salaries, did other modifications; hiring a huge challenge; staffing not a challenge at Briscoe/Segovia/Lopez
  • Slayton – Are there any regulations or standards that need to be addressed so you can house more people in this kind of situation?
    • County jails overflowing; working closely with jail standards to be able to house more people
  • Sherman – Regarding AC, said it was a temporary situation? While American citizens in TX don’t have AC, AC units put in for non-citizens? Why are units temporary?
    • Jail standards require certain temperatures; had to install AC
    • Temporary due to how quickly they needed it
    • Not the most efficient, other things to do if they decide AC should be permanent
  • Sherman – Once issue mitigated, and prison units are restored to original purpose, will take out AC units?
    • Short-term, yes; if it goes long-term, might make sense to make them permanent due to cost-issues
  • Sherman – Jail standards are same standards for county jails; how long have temporary AC units been installed?
    • Late August
  • Sherman – Cost of AC?
    • Paying fuel costs at Briscoe; 200,00 a month, trying to go into electrical power with 40,000 upgrade unit, then it will lower cost to 100,000 a month on electrical bill
    • Based on data, not separated out into costs but could figure out increase in cost
  • Sherman – As it relates to temperatures in prisons, do we keep track of how many deaths are related to lack of AC?
    • Autopsies required, track unnatural deaths; track every heat-related death
  • Sherman – Want to focus more on Texans and making sure they have AC as well

 

Lieutenant Colonel Freeman Martin, Department of Public Safety and Homeland Security Operations – Neutral

  • Biggest issue is jail capacity; new units a great help
  • Local jails don’t have capacity to even house U.S. citizens
  • Sent tremendous number of resources to Val Verde and Del Rio
  • Most significant threat to U.S. is failure to secure Mexican border; Cartels pose huge threat on Southern border, perpetuating and funding gangs, drug smuggling, and violence
  • Increase in drug seizures, meth and fentanyl seizures off the chart
  • Over 1.1 million apprehensions in TX, never been this high
  • Of those criminal aliens deported, many able to return; sex offenders, gang members; borders are being overwhelmed
  • Border patrol great partner, but they are overwhelmed with lack of agents and resources
  • Ranchers along border working with DPS to arrest those for criminal trespassing; ranchers scared
  • Haitian uptake in Del Rio area
  • Uptick of troops to help border patrol also overwhelms border towns (restaurants, hotels, etc.)
  • Murr – Of the 6 major cartels, which is primary cartel operating in Val Verde and Del Rio?
    • CDN mostly; deals made with Haitians to go to Del Rio; cartels have billion dollar industry and control border surges
  • Murr – Hears that cartels have decided to integrate human trafficking, finding TX citizens to be drivers with very limited information; is this a good interpretation of cartel development?
    • Yes, cartels hate DPS and are always looking for other ways to move product; advertising on social media for U.S. citizens that ultimately have very little information on who they’re working for
  • Murr – Also mentioned meth; seems like more is being smuggled in than created at U.S. labs?
    • Yes, old way of making meth took time and required highly regulated ingredients; foreign labs can produce a lot of meth that is cheaper/easier to make
  • Murr – Mentioned fentanyl; DPS changed its procedures for doing field testing of a substance specifically due to potential presence of fentanyl?
    • Yes, a lot of drugs laced with fentanyl, so stopped testing powder on side of road
    • Murr – No state law changes to fentanyl protocol, need to address this
  • Murr – Regarding border landowners, how is communication taking place with state?
    • Most already in contact with state due to smuggling events or trespassing; border sheriffs great to work with
    • Work in areas where fence can direct flow
    • Need combo of infrastructure, technology, and boots on ground to respond to detections; work with landowners on areas where a land barrier will help
    • Haitians crossing in Del Rio, federal land so couldn’t be arrested for criminal trespassing; can use barriers to detain those crossing
  • Murr – Have you heard from landowners who live further from border?
    • Yes, and respond to their needs but main focus on those who live on border
  • Murr – Hear from constituents that see activity as it comes north; concerned about families, stress on local systems; beyond Operation Lonestar, anything missing to help even more?
    • Need more boots on ground, more personnel to help; want locals to help so they are more familiar with area and community, aren’t overwhelming
  • Murr – Who is making determination to send people to Briscoe Unit?
    • Sherriff makes determination; if DPS arrests someone for border-related crime, will be processed and sent to overflow units
    • Charges that are not border-related crimes are sent to county jails
  • Murr – How is transportation taking place from Val Verde?
    • DPS only transports people to Val Verde after arresting them
  • White – Need to talk about border security in different way, public discussion not focusing on all aspects of situation; what does it take to get operational control of border and stop illegal operations in Texas? Either need to get control of the border or not do anything else
    • DPS has worked with border patrol for many years, has never seen border patrol mistreat people; media only focused on negative content
  • Slayton – Cartels at beginning of the year were making $11 million a week; any idea how much cartels are making each week now?
    • $4 million in border related seizures; get money upfront for human trafficking; drugs have to be sold to make profit, have seized $11 million so far
    • No clear answer to how much cartel makes
  • Slayton – Is Mexican government doing anything to slow flood of illegal immigrants? U.S. government?
    • No
    • What you say does not matter as much as what they see, potential immigrants know they will not be deported
    • Federal government boots on ground are great, need to be more; Remain in Mexico Policy was important
  • Slayton – Have numbers of illegal immigrants slowed down?
    • Money has helped increase arrests, but not sure if numbers are slowing; highest numbers ever
  • Slayton – Regarding trespassing, told there were a lot of apprehensions thanks to landowners; is that still taking place?
    • Yes
  • Slayton – Want TX Rangers to be involved in fixing border crisis
  • Sherman – Murr only one with constituents in border areas; understanding of border depends on media depiction; interested in knowing whether DPS has interlocal agreements with municipalities around border
  • Sherman – What technology capabilities do cartels have? How do we combat this? What is number one threat to security in TX?
    • Try to combat cartels with intelligence from many different agencies to go after top priorities; TX lege also funding TX Anti-Gang center to collaborate on cartel enforcers within U.S.
    • Border-related crimes across TX; work with intelligence community to know who to go after; try to compete with cartels on intelligence
  • Sherman – DOJ reported that biggest national threat was white supremacy, what about Texas?
    • Not the same for TX, agencies have informants within white supremacy groups; white supremacist groups isolated, well-monitored, frequently arrested in TX
    • Cartels bigger issues in terms of human smuggling, drug smuggling, violence

 

Maria Lena Ramone, Office of Court Administration – Neutral

  • OCA does not have direct role in housing individuals arrested under Operation Lonestar
  • Involved shortly after arrest and during adjudication process
  • Val Verde typically handles only 600 misdemeanor cases a year; to ensure timely magistration with increased capacity, 30 retired judges assisting in magistration; done via hybrid model
  • OCA appropriated funds for visiting judges, staff, and translators
  • OCA hired additional staff and translators to assist
  • After magistration, OCA then adjudicates; most of arrests taken place in Val Verde and Kinney County
  • 192 misdemeanor cases in Kinney County over past 5 years; with Operation Lonestar, 800 arrests in Kinney County in past month; resources necessary to help adjudicate cases
  • OCA will continue to work with local counties to make sure they’re aware of extra resources, grant funds from Governor’s office
  • Murr – Talked about grant funds that will soon be available from Governor’s office, folks on ground anxious for funding, any idea of what timeframe is?
    • Currently available, deadline to apply in October
  • Murr – Have to be magistrated within 48 hours; if able to bond out, turned over to ICE; if unable to make bond, routed to overflow units that have technology in place to conference in with court-appointed attorneys; how does OCA assist with this process?
    • Have defense commission within OCA to do this
  • Murr – Does OCA have a preferred goal timeline-wise for when cases are moved forward?
    • No, just want to make sure everyone has resources to move things forward

 

Jeff Berkhart, TX Indigen Defense Commission – Neutral

  • Granted funds to Lubbock Public Defender’s Office; serves as hub for Operation Lonestar; helps appoint counsel and translators to cases, help review vouchers from private assigned counsel
  • Majority of cases misdemeanors, 30-40 arrests a day that could increase to 200 a day
  • 73,000 arrests a year, more than number of arrests in Harris County
  • Need to attract attorneys to take cases, need more than 250 attorneys; Kinney County only has 10 attorneys
  • Need more funding if number of arrests gets up to 200 a day
  • Jails see higher volume of attorney-client visitation; TDCJ needs more physical space or technological space for volume of visitations
  • Murr – Regarding language barriers, any attempt to find Spanish-speaking attorneys to fill roles?
    • Yes, also engaging language line
    • Other issue is that people from non-Spanish-speaking countries may not have easy access to an interpreter that speaks their dialect
  • White – What is needed to move along these cases?
    • Access to counsel, working to engage public defender offices and private attorneys to ensure have numbers
    • Need effective representation that will do what is required of them; engaging LPDO to support attorneys to make sure they have access to interpreters
    • Make sure that there is access to interpreters, meaningful interaction with clients before court date

 

AJ Louderback, Sherriff’s Association of TX, Sherriff in Jackson County – Neutral

  • Each county along geographic corridors is inundated with host of problems from border; dead bodies dumped in country, cases of human smuggling, drug smuggling
  • Sheriffs across TX having to deal with pronounced problems; resources stretched thin
  • Having COVID issues as well
  • Murr – Have Sheriffs, including yourself, arrested folks that are ultimately held at Briscoe Unit, other overflow units?
    • Yes
  • Murr – From a sheriff’s standpoint, state trying to take some pressure off local county jails, have you found this to be helpful?
    • State’s reaction is outstanding; no other state that has responded in this way; exemplary conduct
  • Slayton – Heard from Sherriff about number of pursuits taking place in multiple counties; don’t have enough manpower to take care of all of it; need grant funding as soon as possible
    • Wants grant-writing help, difficult to navigate in rural world
  • Murr – State of TX made additional funding available; parts of TX that are so busy that they don’t have expertise/time to jump through paperwork for grant funding?
    • Correct; no accomplished personnel to do that
    • Murr – Need to help facilitate this process so you can comply with grant applications

 

Tonya Ahlschwede, District Attorney Kimble County – Neutral

  • Border Prosecution Unit created in 2009; needed more prosecutors to handle border-related cases
  • Reached out to Kinney County attorney who asked for assistance to make sure he had resources available; unit reaches out to county attorneys to make sure they have resources
  • 1 person office in Kinney County; providing manpower and software to help process cases, working with him and DPS worker to review and file cases
  • Working diligently to make sure things get done with limited resources available to Kinney County; OCA helping to get additional resources
  • Every DA has volunteered to help along border to make sure there are enough prosecution resources to get it done
  • Every county a border county in Texas, each county being impacted by issues at border
  • Issues arising with private property owners and hunting season; will see more interactions due to this
  • Citizens of Kinney County have trespassers on their county; ranchers having fences cut with livestock getting out; obligation to respond to criminal trespass cases, not a victimless crime
  • Murr – Do you have any stats about border crossing?
    • 800 in jail (Kinney County), attorney general files at least 80 cases a day
    • There are 700-800 arrets a day in Del Rio where around 1,300 are coming daily
    • Immigrants are paying around $1,000 a day, up to $25,000 depending on the country they are escaping from
    • 4,000 people coming per day from the whole US border
    • There are people that come over and surrender to police, these are not the people to be concerned about
    • Many people who are trespassing are bringing drugs from the cartel
    • There is a low number of drug criminals that get caught
  • White – Are we helping you achieve the 90% clearance rate for prosecutors?
    • Don’t think we will ever hit 90%
  • White – If you don’t hit that clearance, it can make it hard to get grants
    • COVID has added to it as well, but we can see this being very problematic
  • Sherman – Do you know anything about cellphones being handed out to immigrants who have court dates?
    • I don’t know, that is a federal issue, but I do know that some people are wearing ankle bracelets
  • Murr – What does the border prosecution unit need from the state government?
    • The funding hasn’t opened in Kinney County
    • Need another prosecutor and investigator
  • Murr – To be clear, the sooner local funding is getting to county governments, the faster we can move through court dates?
    • Yes
    • Murr – The challenge is that we have funded the mandate, but you don’t have access to the funding

 

Brenton Smith, Kinney County Attorney – Neutral

  • What is happening in Kinney County is a disaster
  • There is surplus of cases; attorneys are behind no matter what they do
  • The community has had enough, and it is not safe to walk around at night
  • More resources are needed now
  • Murr – You have authority over misdemeanors not felonies, right?
    • Limited to misdemeanors
  • Murr- Has there been another reason you needed more staff?
    • Yes; when Tonya first came in, she saw that I was using a word doc for cases, and she had to show us prosecution software to speed up the process
  • Slayton – What are some things you need to help?
    • I can’t speak for everyone but the prosecution side of it is struggling; we need somewhere to jail individuals, Briscoe is doing a pretty good job at that
    • Kinney County is more of a smuggling hub than a surrender town
    • There is nothing on the board to top smugglers and DPS is just on the highway
    • Border patrol is out of the picture, we cannot rely on them
  • Murr – Why are people not giving you the resources you need to secure the borders?
    • It’s past being a law enforcement issue; the cartel controls both sides of the border, it is a military problem now

 

Brandon Woods, Executive Director of Texas Commission Jail Standards – Neutral

  • Brought this issue in June
  • The jails did not have the capacity, asked if we could increase the capacity
  • Important that we’re also able to process a large number of inmates
  • One of the first tasks was to set up a temporary processing facility
  • The Val Verde temporary processing facility was one of the first measures taken
  • Continued to serve as a resource regarding mental health, and stay time concerns
  • Murr – How many repurposed facilities are there?
    • There is Val Verde, Kinney County, Edwards County was approved but is not yet in use; all inmates are transported through TDCJ transport
  • Murr – Will you speak to the AC requirements in county jails and how it differs in TDCJ facilities?
    • The TDCJ units we have also meet the climate-controlled standards for non-convicted inmates
  • Sherman – Is there a different climate control standard for convicted vs non-convicted?
    • In county jail there is not; as for post-trial TDCJ convictions, not aware, TDCJ could speak to it better
  • Murr – Is it true that 83% of those awaiting trial are in country jail and that TDCJ is mostly reserved for convicted felons?
    • Yes