By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
Val Verde County Judge Lewis G. Owens Jr. on Thursday expressed his frustration over the ongoing border situation, sharply criticizing the Biden administration and saying the county has done everything it can to mitigate the problems it has created.
Owens, along with Val Verde County Sheriff Joe Frank Martinez, spoke at a border town hall meeting at Del Rio’s Living Stone Worship Center.
The judge began by saying the border issue is only one of a host of challenges the county has faced over the past three years.
Owens said although he is a Democrat, the Biden administration “doesn’t get” the problems of the border. He expressed particular frustration over the inaction of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
“He knows the problem. He knows how to slow it down. He knows how to fix it. We know all this, and he’s the one I probably have more contempt for than even the president, because again, he gets it, but when you have an individual who understands the issue, understands how to fix and then does nothing about it, to me that’s sadder than anything else,” Owens said.
Owens defended the non-governmental organization (NGO) working to move immigrants out of Del Rio, although he said he knows there are individuals who want it shut down.
“We can’t do that, folks . . . In June, we had about 1,600 people that went through the NGO, in July about 1,700 people, in August, right at 2,400, and in September and October, we had over 3,600 each month that they helped leave our county,” he said.
“Without the NGO’s help, those 9,000, 10,000, 11,000 individuals would still be here . . . We need to leave them open. We need to leave them alone,” he said.
Owens dispelled rumors the NGO is paying for immigrants’ tickets out of town, saying the immigrants pay their own fares.
He spoke briefly about the immigrants who have been arrested and charged with criminal trespass under Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star initiative.
“From July 20 up until yesterday, there have been 335 individuals that were caught and processed here for trespassing. Out of those, we had about 211 that their cases were either rejected or dismissed, and then we had another 53 cases that have already pled guilty and about another 70, where they’re still waiting,” Owens said.
The county judge spoke at some length about the influx of more than 15,000 Haitian and Central American immigrants that were held in a makeshift encampment under the Del Rio International Bridge in September, lauding the cooperation of city, county, state and federal officials in dealing with the crisis.
Owens said the ongoing border issues have cost the county money in lost revenues from the county’s detention center, some of which the county may not be able to recoup.
The county judge lauded his fellow county elected officials, pointing to the fact that despite the county’s many challenges, commissioners court has only raised the county property tax rate two cents in the past decade.
He warned, though, that he sees no quick end to the border situation.
Owens said he and other county officials have discussed a variety of tactics to stem the flow of illegal immigrants into the county, including suing President Biden. He said the county has reconsidered that action after talking to several law firms, adding he doesn’t want to spend hundreds of thousands of tax dollars for no results. He added the Texas attorney general has sued the Biden administration several times and has gotten no results.
“If there was a way to go get their attention and sue them for something we could actually hang our hat on and say, ‘You’ve got to go do it,’ we can’t figure that out, and the law firms that we’ve talked to, they can’t figure it out,” Owens said.
“What do you do? I really don’t know. I really and truly don’t know,” he added.
The county judge worried aloud about citizens’ fears and where those fears might lead in the future.
“I’ve got one person on the river, an elderly man, and I thought he was playing, but he asked me, ‘Can I shoot them through the door?’ This individual is serious because he’s scared. An elderly gentleman with his wife, and he doesn’t know what to do. He’s never seen it this bad. He’s got them going through his cars. He got them charging their cell phones on the outside plugs. He’s walked out of his house and they’re outside. And he doesn’t know whether they’re bad or good. So what do you tell this individual?
“What advice do you give this man? I told him I don’t want to have to come down here and help you get into the back of a sheriff’s car, so whatever you do, don’t shoot them through the door, and don’t walk outside and shoot them when they’re leaving. I’m not going to tell you what I told him to do, but it’s sad, it’s really sad he’s in this position,” Owens said.
If nothing else, he said, all of the Texas National Guardsmen and DPS troopers are boosting the local economy.
“But the amount of money that’s being thrown at this is wasteful. And the next thing is, it should not be our problem. This is a federal issue, and we can’t get the people to say it’s their problem. The governor asked for it to be declared a disaster, so we could end up with more money from FEMA. That was rejected, even though in our meetings, Secretary Mayorkas said that it was a disaster . . . It’s frustrating to us here, and we’re trying. If we thought that we could go shake somebody and shake some sense into them, we would have done that already,” Owens said.
“They don’t believe that it’s a problem,” he added.
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