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Texas Matters: Abbott's border wall is failing; How a predator became a town's police chief

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Governor Greg Abbott hold a press conference announcing a multi-lingual billboard campaign to warn migrants of the dangers of crossing the border illegally.
Office of the Texas governor
Governor Greg Abbott holds a press conference announcing a multi-lingual billboard campaign to warn migrants of the dangers of crossing the border illegally.

On Thursday Governor Greg Abbott announced the state is launching a new messaging campaign in Mexico and Central America that he said will convince migrants not to come to Texas.

Abbott: "We began putting up billboards, dozens of billboards in Central America and in Mexico. They inform potential illegal immigrants about the reality of what will happen to them if they try to enter Texas illegally. These billboards, they tell the horror stories of human trafficking. One says, 'Many girls who try to migrate to Texas are kidnapped.' Another sign says, 'Your wife and daughter will pay for their trip with their bodies.' One asks families thinking about sending their kids here, 'How much did you pay to have your daughter raped by migrants who are now already close to crossing the border illegally?'"

The billboard campaign will have these messages in several languages including Spanish, Chinese, Russian and Arabic. It is the state’s latest move to try stopping migrants from crossing the border into Texas. Abbott estimated the billboard campaign will cost roughly $100,000.

Abbott: "We have billboards providing warning messages in Mexico. They are arrayed across Mexico, but especially along the northern border of Mexico. One says, 'Stop. If you cross the border illegally into Texas, you will be jailed.' Another warns 'Don't come to Texas illegally. You will be arrested.' And know this: The Trump administration will prioritize for deportation illegal immigrants who have been arrested of what's happening on a daily basis."

It seems unlikely that the people who are attempting to enter the United States are unaware of these risks already. And it’s also clear that many of these migrants are already facing these risks back in their home countries. So these warnings of risks of rape and death are not new to them.

And this isn’t the first time that the United States has tried this tactic of warning migrants of these risks as a way to deter them.

One example came in 2009 when the U.S. Border Patrol commissioned Spanish language corrido ballads to be written and recorded that tell similar graphic stories of rape and dying in the desert trying to cross into the United States.

These songs were played on radio stations in Mexico as part of their regular music rotation— without disclosing these were paid for by U.S. Homeland Security as a propaganda campaign.

The effort showed no signs of reducing the flow of illegal immigration.

Also, at the press conference Abbott said there were rape trees on the border where he claims young women were being gang-raped and then were left to die.

Other than a pile of ashes, no other evidence was shared. Abbott did not provide any documents or evidence supporting the claims of these "rape trees" and deaths. He also did not say if Texas authorities have investigated these rape allegations and if Texas was attempting to pursue these crimes.

Governor Abbott has also been touting the success of the Texas effort in building its own border wall.

But the state has been tightlipped about where these walls are being built and how much this is costing Texas.

Texas Tribune Reporter Zack Despart investigated and for the first time is able to provide details about the Texas border wall program. The article is “As landowners resist, Texas’ border wall is fragmented and built in remote areas

Maypearl’s Predator Police Chief

The Texas town of Maypearl is in Ellis County and has about a thousand people. It’s just south of Dallas.

The town put its trust in its police chief Kevin Coffey—only later to find he was sexually abusing young girls in the community— and that this wasn’t the first time he had committed such acts.

Washington Post investigative reporter Jenn Ableson wrote about it in the story
“The Perfect Pedator: how a police chief groomed a small town”

David Martin Davies can be reached at dmdavies@tpr.org and on Twitter at @DavidMartinDavi