Business owners, educators, attorneys, students, elected officials and private landowners to gather Tuesday on steps of City Hall prior to Council meeting
EAGLE PASS, TX – On Tuesday, Eagle Pass Border Coalition members will hold a public press conference at 4:30 pm on the steps of City Hall to demand immediate action from the City Council to denounce extraordinary legal actions taken by Eagle Pass Mayor Rolando Salinas Jr. and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott regarding border security issues, particularly the controversial Texas Department of Public Safety’s Operation Lone Star.
The City Council will convene shortly thereafter at 5:30 pm in a regular meeting to discuss an Executive Session agenda item regarding Mayor Salinas’ stunning decision to sign a Criminal Trespass Affidavit reclassifying city-owned Shelby Park, the largest public park in Eagle Pass on the banks of the Rio Grande, as “private property.”
Salinas unilaterally signed the affidavit at the request of a state prosecutor without consulting the City Council nor in accordance with state law concerning public parks and recreational lands (Chapter 26, TX Parks and Wildlife Code).
Salinas, a practicing attorney who was elected mayor in 2021, is listed on the affidavit as the sole person who has “care, custody, and control of the above referenced private property.” (Affidavit HERE). The Salinas Affidavit authorizes DPS to “enter the property” and enforce a criminal trespass statute (Section 30.05, Texas Penal Code) to file misdemeanor criminal trespass charges in Texas courts against persons not authorized, primarily migrants seeking asylum.
The move has touched a nerve with Eagle Pass residents because they are now excluded from use and access to their own park and public boat ramp by Operation Lone Star officers and Texas National Guard soldiers.
The small border city of 28,000 people has become the epicenter of a growing humanitarian and environmental crisis because of the state’s complete takeover of public and private lands in this majority Hispanic community. The maelstrom intensified earlier this month after Gov. Abbott began installing a 1000 ft. floating buoy barrier system in the Rio Grande, a highly distressed river system and international boundary that serves as the only source of drinking water for millions of people on the Texas-Mexico border.
The mayor’s actions have led to the stringing of dangerous razor wire (concertina wire) along Shelby Park, causing harm to migrants and first responders, and the placement of shipping containers from China along the banks of the river at the park, creating a hazardous condition for all downstream cities, infrastructure, and properties in case of an extreme weather event.
The quickly developing crisis in Eagle Pass has generated a storm of national and international news coverage including DPS whistleblowers exposing the inhumane and cruel treatment of migrants by state officials at Shelby Park, and the brazen takeover of land by DPS officials.
This month, lawsuits were filed by private business owners in Eagle Pass challenging Abbott’s authority to enact such actions under the emergency power declarations, and most recently, by the U.S. Department of Justice for the Abbott’s installation of a floating barrier of massive buoys into the Rio Grande in violation of the federal Rivers and Harbors Act.
“The Rio Grande is under great distress by the state of Texas’ unilateral decisions to bulldoze existing islands on the river to convert into border security posts, with installation of military concertina wire along a two-mile path along the Rio Grande in Eagle Pass,” said Jessie F. Fuentes, a former educator and business owner of Epi’s Canoes and Kayak Team, LLC who sued Abbott and the State of Texas earlier this month.
The state’s rapid militarization of the border in Eagle Pass, and installation of a floating buoy barrier, is changing the flow and environmental conditions of the international river and endangering the lives of migrants seeking asylum in the United States. The state has ignored a variety of laws and the will of the community, while brushing off any studies to assess the economic and ecological impact of its actions on the river’s ecosystem.
“No one speaks for the Rio Grande concerning these controversial measures being undertaken, so I have chosen to speak and represent the river as its advocate to protect it for current and future generations of people, wildlife, and fauna who depend on it. Save the Rio Grande,” Fuentes said.
The Eagle Pass Border Coalition is a group of community organizers working to empower our community to lift our voice, protect our culture and become ambassadors of our fronterizo identity. We’re fighting to be the ones that tell our own story.
IG – @epbordercoalition | epbordercoalition@gmail.com
