The Kimble County Sheriff's Department is facing a sharp increase in illegal immigration rates. Kimble County Sheriff Allen Castleberry says that many of these migrants may be bad actors seeking to enter the United States to conduct illegal activities or carry out terrorist attacks.
The department is working with state and federal agencies to address the problem, but Castleberry feels that it’s not enough. He also believes that the problem of illegal immigration will spin out of control if Title 42 is repealed.
The Austin Journal recently interviewed Castleberry about the issue.
Q: You have warned residents to be cautious when driving on local highways of people who may be transporting illegal immigrants. How much of your department’s time and resources are you committing to this problem?
A: “What we put on Facebook was a cautionary warning to people traveling on the highway because if there is a pursuit, we want people to be vigilant as to their surroundings. If we're in a car chase, we don't want them to get caught up in the chase or get run off the road or the suspect might run their vehicle into ours. I have four deputies and that's about all they do. We look for smugglers and indications of smugglers. It's a 24/7 operation.”
What can you tell us about this situation—what’s going on? What are they seeing?
“Basically, we have waves and they have been coming in the last two or three weeks and then they move to another highway trying to find a way to get out of our area. They probe. We'll be working traffic in a specific area. Once they find out that we're there, then they try to move to another road to keep from getting stopped.”
Do you know who is paying the drivers?
“From the information we received, the cartel basically.”
Where are most of these illegal immigrants from, and where are they seeking to go?
“A lot of the information that we received from intel and interviews is that they'll go to another location such as Houston, Austin, San Antonio even up further north. They go to a stash house and from the stash house, they move throughout the United States.”
Are you seeing any evidence of human trafficking—in other words, instances where people are being transported or used in any way against their will?
“There was one and it was last year. One of our highway patrolmen stopped a vehicle and (found) a guy locked in the trunk. He had been assaulted and thrown in the back of the trunk and he was being taken to a stash house in Austin. Other than that, we have not had any other instances where that has happened.”
As the primary public official charged with protecting the lives and property of Kimble County citizens, what are your main concerns with illegal immigration?
“You got to keep in mind some of these folks are just wanting a better life, but some of these folks are coming in for ulterior motives. We've caught three cartel members and one gang member to date. The cartels are using this for opportunities to infiltrate and set up their criminal enterprises by mixing these people with their own people for their own personal gain and to run their illegal organizations.”
How would you characterize the response from state and federal law and immigration enforcement agencies?
“The state agency which we deal with is the Texas Department of Public Safety. They're doing a great job. I can pick up a phone and make a phone call to the regional director and he assists the small counties as best he can and as quick as possible. The border patrol is who we primarily deal with. The border patrol, they're stretched thin, they do what they can, and we appreciate them very much.”
What more should Texas do to confront this problem if the federal government doesn’t take action?
“Continue what Gov. (Greg) Abbott set out to do and get to finally finish building the wall and just keep doing what we're doing.”
What do you expect the impact will be in Kimble County if Title 42 is repealed?
“It'll be chaos. Title 42 poses some structure as an order to put people on the other side until they have been properly vetted before they come into this country and that's most important. Because at this point, everybody hates the United States. We have ISIS, we have cartel people, we have terrorists that want to harm this country and if they just let them in and there's no vetting, that's where the chaos comes in. We don't want this to be a third world country where we have bombings and things like that.”