A Texas judge has dismissed a lawsuit by a group of male illegal immigrants who claimed that an operation initiated by the Republican Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, was in violation of their constitutional rights.
Mr. Abbott launched Operation Lone Star in March of 2021. It effectively authorized a coordinated effort between the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) and the Texas National Guard to stem the flow of illegal immigrants, as well as associated efforts to stymie Mexican drug cartels smuggling narcotics into the United States.
“Texas supports legal immigration but will not be an accomplice to the open border policies that cause, rather than prevent, a humanitarian crisis in our state and endanger the lives of Texans. We will surge the resources and law enforcement personnel needed to confront this crisis,” Mr. Abbott said at the time.
The subsequent lawsuit against Operation Lone Star was initiated by a group of 15 illegal immigrants in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, who claimed it was in violation of their 4th, 6th, and 14th Amendment rights.
The case was dismissed earlier this week by federal Judge Robert Pitman, an Obama-appointee, who said that the illegal aliens failed to provide conclusive evidence of which constitutional rights were violated as a result of the Operation.
“Because Plaintiffs’ requests for declaratory judgment are moot and because they fail to sufficiently plead that Defendants have violated their constitutional rights, the Court finds that it must dismiss this case,” Judge Pitman wrote in the ruling.
“While Plaintiffs’ Revised Third Amended Complaint certainly provided the Court with concerning statistics regarding the rollout of Operation Lone Star, Plaintiffs have not provided the Court with facts regarding how the individual or supervisory powers and actions of Defendants have deprived Plaintiffs of their constitutional rights,” it says.
Mr. Abbott was assisted in the case by the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI). The Institute filed an amicus brief, which stated that detention of the illegal immigrants did not violate any of their constitutional rights.
“Plaintiffs were arrested and detained for violating Texas Penal Code§ 30.05 as part of Texas’s Operation Lone Star (‘OLS’). According to Plaintiffs, they were arrested ‘solely on reasonable suspicion or knowledge that a person was unlawfully present in the United States’ in violation of the Fourth Amendment,” the brief states.
“But the facts alleged in the complaint reflect that Plaintiffs were arrested on probable cause that they violated Texas’s criminal trespass statute and, even if accepted as true, cannot show that they were arrested ‘solely’ on account of their perceived immigration status,” it continued.
According to IRLI executive director Dale Wilcox, the case was fully deserving of a dismissal.
“The Biden administration’s abdication of its statutory duty to secure the border has created a rash of property crimes in Texas, which Texas has every right to address by enforcing its state laws,” he said, according to Breitbart.
“If the plaintiffs were right in their claims, not only would illegal aliens have free rein to enter and remain in Texas and the U.S., but free rein to commit crimes without consequence. We are pleased the court saw the legal baselessness of this suit and dismissed it,” he concluded.
