‘It’s Not a War Zone’: Val Verde County’s Conservative Democratic Sheriff on Misinformation, Immigration

The U S -Mexico boundary is perhaps the bulk widely discussed and poorly understood region in the country MAGA influencers and nationalistic politicians have inaccurately portrayed demarcation communities as dangerous crime hotspots akin to a warzone and overwhelmed by asylum-seekers In reality edge communities at least on the U S side are particular of the country s safest Joe Frank Martinez Courtesy Val Verde County Sheriff s Office Joe Frank Martinez is the sheriff of Val Verde County home to the dividing line city of Del Rio He s a conservative Democrat He s pro-gun and anti-abortion and he supports Governor Greg Abbott s multi-billion-dollar Operation Lone Star militarization mission which has flooded South Texas with police and soldiers and new stretches of confines wall In summer Del Rio was thrown into the national spotlight when nearly Haitian settlers came to the city s confines to seek refuge In newest years previously Democratic strongholds among the state s perimeter communities have shifted to the right politically as Trump has made important gains among Latino Texans including in -percent-Hispanic Val Verde County In the presidential electoral process only percent of voters in Val Verde went for Trump In that number increased to almost percent A county top cop s job is local policing but even Martinez s position has in recent times been politicized and selected of his area members expect him to take a tougher stance on immigration In his the greater part up-to-date bid for sheriff he was pressured to change parties but he prevailed easily as a Democrat The Texas Observer spoke to Martinez about Operation Lone Star South Texas voters rightward shift and the realities of living on the dividing line TO Boundary crossings are at a historic low Do you think Texas should cut back on Operation Lone Star funding I don t not at this time I agree with the stance that the governor s taking We have a processing center for Operation Lone Star that was very instrumental in the arrests that DPS was making initially In Val Verde County there s charges pending on individuals that did not appear to court I know that in Kinney County there s a little over There s -something in Dimmit County All these individuals are gonna be arrested somewhere throughout the state and they re gonna be brought back to the county of arrest So you can t burden the local jails to house these individuals My taxpayers shouldn t be burdened with that financial loss OLS funds need to be looked at different How can they still continue to aid what s going on At the front door you were there to make all the arrests But at the back door you still have to wait for the prosecution A lot of these individuals are coming back to those counties where they were arrested So don t pull the rug out from under us just yet Immigration enforcement has historically been the role of the federal regime but the push for an expansion of g agreements expands those duties to local beat cops and sheriff s deputies Do you view immigration enforcement as a job that should also be tasked to local law enforcement I do not not in our communities We re right at the front line so we have plenty of Confines Patrol agents to do their job If we make a detention of an individual whose immigration status is questioned we re gonna call Demarcation Patrol I may have three to four deputies work in a single shift patrolling square miles I m not gonna deprive my citizens of calls for utility because my deputies are tied up handling an immigration issue It d take anywhere from two to three minutes to get a Dividing line Patrol agent on site So we ll just turn it over to Demarcation Patrol What misconceptions do you think Americans have about life in boundary communities They don t know what we experience or don t experience on a day-to-day basis Several of those people that are commenting or viewing from a million miles away don t have a clue I invite those people to come to the edge and take a tour of the dividing line at any time Give me a call Right now they re not gonna see anything cause nothing s happening Governor Abbott has a frontier wall that is being constructed there in Val Verde County from Lake Amistad south along the river to Del Rio And that s gonna help protect my group My disagreement with that is that it put several of my residents on the wrong side of that wall About - residents Those people that have lived out there overall their entire lives Particular of those are absentee owners I visited with a handful of them They don t like looking at the structure But for safety they know what they need to do to protect their property They can t leave anything laying out in their yard because it might get hauled off Somebody swims across the river and loads it on a boat takes it back or whatever So there s mixed feelings on that But for the most of part that wall is really going to help with moving the flow of traffic away from my neighborhood In latest years voters in numerous Texas edge counties have moved to the right politically Have you felt the impact of this shift in your region So at the local level no At the federal level because of the previous administration you could feel that shift people going to the right I might have lost particular voters for my stance I came out on top in that polling so that s all that matters I will continue to maintain my principles I m more conservative more middle of the road In our county cabinet we have five or six elected Republicans everybody else is a Democrat You were pressured to change parties in this up-to-date voting correct What was that like and why did you choose to not change parties I want to stand on my morals and principles I saw back in the s and s when my dad fought for the underprivileged in our communities I helped as a young kid to dig post holes to put a mailbox on for the people that had no mail system and that s what that group was fighting for back in the day This is a group of people that were Democrat back in the day Friends of my dad That s what they fought for to be equal They had no mail function a few of our colonias Just because I don t agree with what they re doing at the federal level I m not gonna abandon my beliefs just to go along with the flow My beliefs and principles have remained steady and I m not going to change Have your region s expectations of your job changed as a conclusion of increased edge crossings in contemporary years There s a group on the far right that wishes I d done things a little bit different There s a photo out there of me helping a lady and a child out of the river They were already on U S soil What kind of human would I be if I couldn t help a fellow human What that picture doesn t show is that that lady and that child were turned over to Territory line Patrol at once within seconds Throughout my society there s guys that won t talk to me because I helped the lady out of the river Technically she was in the U S already It was no different than if I m with somebody that s coming across private land somewhere and is dehydrated or whatever with me helping them by giving them water No different When you of late introduced Governor Abbott to give a speech at the Texas Dividing line Sheriff s Coalition conference you spoke about a event in Del Rio that you referred to as the Haitian invasion as if the settlers were trying to cross for a foreign army Why did you use the term invasion People have classified it as an invasion That comes from the federal executive or comes from comments made by the masses There were masses of people There were people underneath that bridge and they were just coming and going as they pleased I guess that s how I ve referred to it Haitian invasion just sounds right People were coming and going nothing was being done It does ring like a military term but I m not a military person My federal partners and my state partners and my deputies they struggled over those days trying to make sure that nobody died There was one baby born underneath that bridge Things were out of control I was asking if you view that to call it invasion as dehumanizing language I was wondering how you square that up with the fact that you also helped people out of the river I picked it up from comments being made at that time by either specific of our federal or state representatives I don t know It s a term that just stuck To change it now to something else you know I m not going to do that The situation has kind of calmed down So I have to think about that question your questioning on the term of invasion and evaluate it see how I move forward Is there anything else that you wish people knew about your job as a limit sheriff Before people start commenting on the boundary come visit the demarcation Right now there s nothing going on I took a group of about - people to the margin They thought it was a war zone I took them on a boundary tour during the Biden administration Their tone changed totally They thought they had to wear helmets and vests and all that kind of stuff It s not a war zone These immigrants are people that try to come across to find a better way of life At the same time they see what I go through so it kind of puts it into perspective They re not looking at it anymore from a million miles away They re right there I invite you to go to the confines This interview has been edited for length and clarity The post It s Not a War Zone Val Verde County s Conservative Democratic Sheriff on Misinformation Immigration appeared first on The Texas Observer