Texas troopers employed by Greg Abbott’s border patrol initiative were instructed to push children into the Rio Grande and deny migrants water in extreme heat, according to emails sent by a state employee.
Nicholas Wingate, a trooper-medic from the state’s department of public safety expressed concern over “inhumane” actions towards migrants in a 3 July email to supervisors and reveals other unreported incidents involving migrants, the Houston Chronicle first reported.
The email, which the Guardian independently reviewed, gives a report of weekly events from 24 June to 1 July, detailing several cases of migrants being caught or injured by barbed wire in Eagle Pass, a Texas city along the US border with Mexico.
In the email, Wingate calls for several policy changes to prevent further injury to migrants, including removing barrels wrapped in razor wire in the river.
“The wire and barrels in the river needs to be taken out as this is nothing but an inhumane trap in high water and low visibility,” Wingate wrote.
He also told officials to reverse orders to withhold water from migrants.
“Due to the extreme heat, the order to not give people water needs to be immediately reversed as well,” Wingate wrote, the Chronicle reported.
He added: “I believe we have stepped over a line into the inhumane.”
Travis Considine, a spokesperson for the Texas department of safety, said the accounts provided by the trooper were under internal investigation. He said the department has no directive or policy that instructs troopers to withhold water from migrants or push them back into the river.
In one instance on 30 June, Wingate wrote, troopers treated a four-year-old girl who passed out from heat exhaustion after she attempted to pass through the wire amid 100F (nearly 38C) conditions. Texas national guard soldiers pushed her and her group back towards Mexico.
The same day, a pregnant woman was treated after troopers found her caught in the wire and in extreme pain. The woman was having a miscarriage and emergency responders took her to a hospital.
One teenager also broke his leg trying to avoid the wire and had to be carried by his father.
In a separate case on 25 June, troopers discovered a group of 120 people along a fence on the river, Wingate wrote. The group, including small children and infants who were nursing, were exhausted and hungry. But a commanding officer ordered troopers to “push the people back into the water to go to Mexico”, he wrote in the email.
The White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, told Associated Press reporters Tuesday that the trooper’s account, if true, was “abhorrent” and “dangerous”. Democrats in the Texas capitol said they planned to investigate.
“We are talking about the bedrock values of who we are as a country and the human indecency that we are seeing,” Jean-Pierre said. “If this is true, it is just completely, completely wrong.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security condemned the reported actions in a statement but did not say whether the agency was planning to investigate the allegations.
The Republican congressman Tony Gonzales, whose sprawling south Texas congressional district includes the border, tweeted, “Border security should not equal a lack of humanity.”
Troopers ultimately refused their supervisors’ orders given “the very real potential of exhausted people drowning”. They expressed their concerns to the commanding officer but were told to “tell [the migrants] to go to Mexico and get into our vehicle and leave”, Wingate wrote. He wrote that other border patrol employees provided care to migrants after they left.
“We need to operate it correctly in the eyes of God,” Wingate wrote in the email. “We need to recognize that these are people who are made in the image of God and need to be treated as such.”
Wingate’s email added that wire running along the river “forces people to cross in other areas that are deeper and not as safe for people carrying kids and bags”.
Wingate’s email also reveals additional drownings in the Rio Grande that were not reported. On 1 July, a mother and one of her two children drowned while crossing the river as federal border patrol agents saw the family struggling. The mother and one child were taken from the water and they were pronounced dead after being brought to a hospital by emergency responders. The second child was never found, Wingate wrote.
Tom Schmerber, the Maverick county sheriff, who has supported the state deploying workers to the border, told the Associated Press he was taken aback by the trooper’s account.
“I don’t agree with whatever they were told to do,” Schmerber said. “That’s not something that’s part of our mission. You know, I know that we’re here to protect and serve no matter who it is, you know, either immigrants or US citizens. But we’re not going to do any harm to anybody.”
A representative from the governor’s office could also not be reached for immediate comment.
Abbott has been widely criticized for his treatment of migrants and methods employed by his Operation Lone Star plan to prevent migration at the US-Mexico border.
The state has approved $5.1bn for the plan.
Abbott announced last month that a barrier of buoys would be installed in the Rio Grande to prevent migrants from swimming across into the US.
Rodolfo Rosales, Texas state director of the League of United Latin Americans Citizens, spoke out against Abbott’s plan.
“We view it as a chilling reminder of the extreme measures used throughout history by elected leaders against those they do not regard as human beings, seeking only to exterminate them, regardless of the means employed,” Rosales told CBS News.
