National Guard Troops Making Arrests
International Implications Uncertain & NGO Funding, Taxpayers, and the Truth
Big news breaking online earlier Wednesday, by Todd Bensman at the Center for Immigration Studies. Bensman reports Texas Governor Greg Abbott has authorized National Guard troops to begin handcuffing illegal aliens on trespassing charges.
The troops have newly granted powers to arrest, after about 40 hours of police and law-enforcement style training in the use of deadly force— underlying just how wild and wooly this legal thicket is that the state is leaping into. Generally speaking, soldiers are trained to break things and kill people— fueling alarm and worry about the physical safety of illegal aliens as the border becomes more “militarized.” It would seem that training the Guardsmen in law-enforcement procedures is meant in part to mitigate that concern.
Bensman reports that small-scale soldier arrest operations have begun quietly, as part of the ongoing “Operation Lone Star,” in close coordination with the border surge of Texas Department of Public Safety troopers. Bensman reports there’s about 1,000 DPS troopers along the border, mostly concentrated in Val Verde county and Starr County.
But, given the nature of operations at the Spofford railyard, a betting man might stand to make some cash, assuming there’s a fair number of troops also aiding operations there. It’s a basic fact of this crisis that the vast majority of trespassing arrests related to Operation Lone Star are happening in Kinney County, at the Spofford facilities. And indeed, recent reporting on Fox News has shown a National Guard presence there in recent days, prior to this news from Bensman.
The nature of the railyard and the reliance on the trains by illegal aliens makes it very easy to put what are considered good, solid, trespassing charges on those using them.
Bensman spoke to DPS Director Steve McCraw, who some say has been overseeing a transition of the Department of Public Safety, to make it more like a Texas-modeled FBI.
“Nobody’s ever really used the guard before in this capacity,” McCraw said. “We’re going to use them to actually secure the border. The governor, the legislature, and the citizens of Texas have made it very clear; they want the border secure. It is good for our federal partner as well. The federal government should be thanking the state of Texas, and it’ll make the rest of the country safer as we increase the level of security.”
The relatively few soldiers now deploying will mainly use their new arrest authority to apprehend single adult male illegal migrants who trespass along state-built border fencing onto some 142 parcels of private ranchlands. Their owners have all entered into state agreements to become complainants in misdemeanor-level criminal trespassing cases that DPS officers will charge (and have been charging since July), McCraw told the Center. The so-called single male “runners” run because they are still subject to federal instant expulsion policy to control the Covid-19 pandemic.
But agency officials also reason that single adult men may pose greater public safety risks, in that some are likely hiding serious criminal histories or are involved in Mexican cartel drug and human smuggling and trafficking.
As always, Bensman’s reporting and analysis is thorough and comprehensive. Highly recommend scrolling through his archives at CIS.org for his analysis of many other matters along the border.
Non-Governmental Organization Funding Confusion
Readers may have noted some articles elsewhere, indicating that area NGO’s helping move illegal aliens around the country do not get directly funded by U.S. Taxpayers. We are speaking mainly of the Val Verde Border Humanitarian Coalition and its migrant processing center in Del Rio, but there are quite a few others out there under various names like “Horizons,” “Endeavors,” and “Refugee Services of Texas,” and more.
Longtime readers may already be anticipating where we are going here, but let’s preface anything further by pointing out that by most reasonable measures the NGO’s are doing good work— feeding hungry people and keeping mass amounts of illegal aliens from piling up in Border cities and creating horrible situations.
It might even be said, that their efforts are necessary, given the Federal Government’s failure to secure the border. However, their successful operations also prevent Americans from witnessing the absolute state of things. By efficiently funneling illegal aliens into the United States, they prevent cameras and journalists from documenting the flood of illegal immigration in ways that would resonate with the public at large. Recall the alarm that seemed to flood the nation at the sight of drone camera footage showing “Little Haiti” beneath the Del Rio port of entry. The sight was so visceral, so alarming, that the FAA moved to ban further drone flights under what seems to have been a thin pretext— a pretext that was blown out of the water after DPS seemingly defied the Federal Government by taking the same reporter that used the drone up in a helicopter for more footage the very next day. It was a day after that, that the drone restriction was more or less lifted. Weird.
Let us return to the question of NGO funding. The Val Verde Border Humanitarian Coalition is almost certainly technically correct in saying they do not receive funding from Homeland Security or other Government sources. Technically correct is frequently the best kind of correct, but it can also be very misleading.
The Cavalry - Dispatch took a look at the organization’s tax filing with the IRS— available to the public, albeit with some digging around on the IRS website. In 2019, the organization took in slightly more than 100-thousand dollars in “donations from private or Government sources.” Do not mistake this for a smoking gun. It is not. That comes later. That quoted phrase is simply an entry on the 990EZ form, and one is reasonably certain that in the case of the VVBHC, all of that 100-thousand dollars came from private sources only— it simply shares a space on the form with possible government sources.
In a recent interview elsewhere, a VVBHC official stated that the majority of their funding comes from faith based organizations, and some corporations, like “Save the Children.” Faith based organizations would include groups like Catholic Charities, Church World Service, and UMCOR, which is a Methodist organization.
VVBHC doubtlessly receives money from many other groups, but let us focus on these three as they are fairly typical, and will help illustrate why it is almost impossible for any NGO involved in migrant aid to claim with a straight face that 100% of their funding is free of taxpayer entanglements.
According to CharityWatch.org, Church World Service gets more than half of it’s money from government sources. They point to CWS’s own tax returns, and publicly available auditing. Many charities publish their financials, as transparency encourages donations.
UMCOR might see almost a quarter of its funding from the Government, according to CharityWatch.org, presumably, it is able to draw on greater amounts of money from Church members nationwide for the bulk of the remainder.
For Catholic Charities, one need not look far. It’s right there on wikipedia. In 2010, they reported revenues of $4.7 Billion, $2.9 Billion of that came from the U.S. Taxpayer, including those who aren’t even Catholic. Many critics online say the organization isn’t terribly Catholic itself these days, and has simply become a defacto arm of U.S. Government welfare distribution.
In the case of other refugee-related NGO’s, like Refugee Services of Texas, it is common for them to cite right on their website, direct funding from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Circling back to the VVBHC, it is again technically correct that they do not receive monies directly from the U.S. taxpayer— but one finds the statement rather disingenuous in light of how much government money surely is in fact coming their way after being filtered through these other organizations. If we were talking about drug money, we would say it was being laundered.
It is probably also true that the VVBHC is not spending its money on plane and bus tickets for illegal aliens. Assuming their funding level remains in the low six figures, there’s no way they could afford transportation costs for all of the illegals flowing through Del Rio these days. The organization’s leader suggests they’re being paid for by the Aliens themselves. Who knows— there’s no way of ascertaining that from here at the Cavalry - Dispatch.
In the course of writing this piece, we have hesitated to link to the reporting we have been referring to about the VVBHC. We do not want to seem as if we are impugning the Journalism at another organization. Not at all. We believe our associates are doing fine work, and bringing good information to the table. What is happening here, is simply a demonstration of what occurs as information escapes into the wild, and we are confronted with data that seems to conflict with our assumptions, biases, or understanding of the facts.
It forces us to consider what we know, what we think we know, and what is or might be. And that cannot happen without a variety of other efforts. So, kudos to the 830 Times in Del Rio, for reaching out to the VVBHC, and filing an excellent report full of facts, figures and information about their efforts in the Queen City.
One area that many opponents of NGO efforts do not speak of very loudly, if they’ve even considered it, is what the consequences of not aiding illegals in some fashion might look like. Set aside the obvious dilemma of thousands of aliens left to fend for themselves with no lodgings, or food readily available, and consider the wanton larceny and other crime that would surely follow as desperate people did what they have to do. It would be a dark display— a horrible compounding of the natural misery that accompanies illegal immigration.
We’ve noted in the past that it will take many different efforts to fix what’s been broken on the border and we mean it. Closing the border would be a fine beginning, of course. But as we are witnessing, the path to that end seems crooked and hard to follow, when attempting to also balance humanitarian needs and goals without the willing and eager co-operation of international partners in Mexico and Central America.
As always, thanks for reading. A lot is continuing to happen in Kinney County. We are informed that efforts continue at the Sheriff’s Office to bring in 10 reserve deputies that pass screening and will be able to aid local efforts. And we understand that the Texas-based Militia group presently operating in the area is actively reaching out to local ranchers and making arrangements to work in areas that have perhaps been underserved by state and federal law enforcement efforts. One hopes all parties involved in the efforts here in Kinney County behave with what was called in bygone days “the acme of caution.” If the State’s use of National Guard troops to make arrests along the border is a deep, unexplored pool that the Governor is diving into, one could worry that Kinney County has handed off its beer and told onlookers to watch the coming cannonball in the water next door.
The Cambridge Dictionary says ACME refers to the example of perfection. So, consider that animated Warner Brothers Coyote— for all of his wiliness, and the use of perfect anvils, perfect dynamite, perfect everything *but* caution— he always failed in the face of the Roadrunner. To put it another way— a good plan comes before good tools. Let us hope that we are witnessing the execution of a good plan in the days ahead, and that local and state efforts may be cast as the likeable Roadrunner, instead of the hapless Coyote.
Edited to replace "agency" with "organization," in second headline.