Following Up On the Attorney Accused of Smuggling Aliens
Hello again Friends,
You more than likely remember this morning’s earlier edition, about a Corpus Christi-area attorney accused of smuggling illegal aliens through Kinney County.
We’ve linked it below for your convenience.
As it happens, there isn’t much of an update we can give you— the case is being investigated by the Department of Public Safety, which is the agency that pulled the Attorney over in the first place.
Consequently, Kinney County Sheriff Brad Coe will not be releasing a full-length official statement on the matter. However, this morning, he did confirm for us that it happened on RR 674 in the northern reaches of the County, well off-course for any driver trying to reach Del Rio, which is the destination the attorney has been quoted elsewhere as saying he was headed for.
Despite that, we feel a need to follow the Federal Government’s example when putting out statements, and reiterate that the man should be presumed innocent until proven guilty— and at this point, he has not yet been officially indicted or charged.
The whole thing is pending an official DPS investigation. One thing that has become clear as Operation Lone Star continues, is that the time-frame for filing paperwork and other such matters in investigations is a couple of weeks broader at DPS than the usual scale for county-based investigations.
So, it may be a couple weeks more before anyone’s able to get any final paperwork from DPS about this particular arrest and traffic stop.
Meanwhile, it’s been a busy morning— with other border crisis-related news happening. The hottest, freshest stuff comes to us this time around from progressive news website “The Daily Beast,” looking into complaints reportedly being lodged against one of the visiting county judges that is hearing trespassing cases in Kinney County.
Judge Edgar Allan Amos is accused of using the word “wetback” in front of a defense attorney for clients accused of trespassing on private ranch land in Kinney County.
Before all is said and done, the Daily Beast argues this may call into question all of Judge Amos’s cases and rulings. Judge Amos is a retired County Judge from the San Angelo area.
Two years ago, one would be tempted to say this is a huge huge deal. Tectonic perhaps. But after the last while, it seems more likely to us that it will merely serve as red meat for those who already oppose Operation Lone Star, and be greeted with shrugs by those who support it.
Positions are hardened. And those supporting Operation Lone Star have already been accused of a certain amount of overall unrestrained bigotry. Consequently, this particular incident seems unlikely to have too much effect in swaying the opinions of those whose minds are already made up.
In any event, the Daily Beast quotes extensively from a complaint filed with the State Judicial Ethics Commission.
In the complaint, defense lawyer Emily Miller recalls crossing paths with the judge on July 26 at the McCulloch County Courthouse, where Amos stations himself at a computer to conduct virtual court hearings on Zoom while arrestees remain 150 miles south at a courthouse near the border.
“He mentioned he did not think people understood how hard ‘we had it’ in these hearings. As the hearings are technologically, logistically, and emotionally difficult, I agreed,” Miller wrote in the complaint. “He went on to say that these people (meaning the defendants) are not ‘your regular wetbacks. They have phones and clothes and all kinds of other things.’”
“I took that to mean that he believes the defendants are affluent and not really indigent, and are not like the migrants making their way into the U.S. in years or decades past. I was dismayed and disappointed,” Miller continued, noting how his comment “raises substantial questions about his impartiality and the quality of justice being served in his court.”
—Defense Attorney Emily Miller, as quoted by Jose Paglieri in The Daily Beast
Neither Miller, or Judge Amos have publicly commented on the allegation. It’s not clear when a hearing on the matter might be held.
And finally this afternoon— more coverage in national press of local complaints in Kinney County from residents who are echoing complaints being voiced elsewhere in the state about the increased law enforcement presence.
This time it’s NBC, featuring longtime Brackettville resident David Esparza, 73, who many residents know from his years and years of employment at the local post office. Others *ahem* may also recall his time spent refereeing local sporting events in his younger years.
Mr. Esparza and the other local residents quoted for the piece are of course entitled to their own opinions. It does seem inevitable that as Operation Lone Star drags on, taxpayers may begin losing patience.
It’s worth a read, even though we must take issue with NBC’s presentation of the statistics. The story has a series of graphs and charts right up at the top, suggesting that Operation Lone Star has led to a massive increase in racist traffic citations.
It’s done in a breathless fashion— as though one is playing their trump card right off the top.
Kind of silly though. How could anyone be surprised that there has been a huge increase in traffic citations, when there’s been a correspondingly huge increase in the numbers of DPS troopers in the area?
To their credit, NBC News attempts to address this, by pointing out the following:
The NBC News analysis found that state trooper deployments surged in Texas’ border counties, with the number of troopers almost doubling from 2019-2020 to 2021. The biggest increases were in border counties where Latinos were the majority; increases in white-majority border counties were much smaller, if they were increased at all.
Twenty-four of the counties under Abbott's June “disaster declaration” are on or near the Mexico border. Of the border counties, 21 have Latino-majority populations.
Among the 53 counties, DPS data show troopers have disproportionately increased their presence in Latino-majority border counties since the pandemic began: More than half of the Latino-majority counties on or near the border saw above-average increases in troopers, while none of the three white-majority counties did.
—NBC News Reporting on the Border Crisis, Dated 08/20
That may all sound very damning. Especially if one is from outside the state, and utterly unfamiliar with the various border counties.
There’s even a scary racist-looking graphic with dots on it to accompany the text.
Looking at that graphic— if you want to see racism— you’ll see racism. If you don’t— you won’t. We might be accused of willful blindness here, but consider the following: Each border-located county, with two exceptions, is hispanic dominated. The others, highlighted on the right, are what one might call “border adjacent” at best, with the exception of those two West-Texas counties near El Paso.
Where are most DPS troopers located right now? As close to the border as they can get. Period. How can one be shocked that the region with the most troopers in it has also seen the most citations, period? It doesn’t matter if they’re hispanic or anglo-dominated. The sheer numbers of state troopers present all but guarantees these kinds of lopsided seeming stats, especially when one takes into account how sparsely populated those West Texas Counties are.
In any event, one feels confident that the takeaway here for most supporters of Operation Lone Star, is that the State of Texas needs to start seeing some progress in handling the crisis, in general, lest the numbers of those citizens and taxpayers who are upset over Law Enforcement’s increased presence start to grow.
And on that note— we’ll call it a day. As always, any errors, misdeeds or other sins committed here are ours alone, and not indicative of policies at Kinney County.
Have a great day, and we’ll see you again soon.
Edited to correct the spelling of address from adrss. The corrected sentence should now read: "To their credit, NBC News attempts to address this, by pointing out the following: "