Vehicle pursuits by Texas state troopers and local law enforcement have killed at least 106 people and injured 301 in counties participating in Texas' Operation Lone Star since the program began in 2021, Human Rights Watch said today.
State authorities are poised to play an enhanced role in United States immigration enforcement under President Donald Trump's administration. On his first day in office, President Trump issued an executive order to increase the role of state and local law enforcement in deportation efforts. Texas Governor Greg Abbott has already responded by ordering the deployment of "tactical strike teams" dedicated to this purpose. This is a dangerous approach, and Operation Lone Star, during which high-speed chases have killed many people including bystanders and children, is a case in point. Such practices should be curbed, not embraced and expanded.
"To end unnecessary injuries and deaths, many law enforcement agencies nationwide have restricted vehicle pursuits to situations where they are necessary to prevent death, injury, or serious damage to property," said Vicki B. Gaubeca, associate director for US immigration and border policy at Human Rights Watch. "Texas state troopers should consider human life paramount and cease putting people's lives, including those of Texans and bystanders, at risk."
The updated analysis follows Human Rights Watch's November 2023 report, "So Much Blood on the Ground," which documented that dangerous chases of vehicles thought to contain immigrants under Operation Lone Star led to deadly crashes. That report covered the period from March 2021, when Operation Lone Star began, through July 2023. The new analysis updates those findings through the end of 2024, based on media reports, and most likely underestimates the total.
The El Paso Times reported in October 2024 about a pursuit in which Texas troopers pursued a car driven by a 17-year-old US citizen. The 17-year-old's car crashed into the vehicle of Wendy J. Rodriguez, 44, a mother who was on her way to work, killing her.
Human Rights Watch also obtained and analyzed Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) data on vehicle pursuits through August 2024, which shows a massive increase in the number of DPS pursuits. Pursuits increased by about 50 percent, from about 1,680 in the state before Operation Lone Star to an average of 2,440 per year in 2022 and 2023. Through August 2024, the state was on track for a third consecutive year of more than 2,000 pursuits. More than 70 percent of Texas' statewide increase in pursuits has occurred in Operation Lone Star counties, even though these counties only hold 15 percent of the population.
In its analysis of pursuits from media sources, Human Rights Watch identified 10 people killed who were reportedly bystanders-not in the pursued vehicle-and 20 bystanders who were injured. The reports also included the deaths of two children-under the age of 18-including a bystander, and four children who were injured in a crash after a vehicle pursuit.
"These pursuits regularly occur in residential areas or in sensitive areas: around schools, places of worship, and hospitals," El Paso County Commissioner David Stout said in an interview with Human Rights Watch. "DPS is often conducting pursuits at 80-100 miles per hour. They are putting our lives in danger. Comparing these policies to the Department of Justice and police departments shows that DPS is out of line with all of these other organizations and the best practices they implement."
The Texas legislative session, which began in January 2025, provides an important opportunity for lawmakers to ask questions about Operation Lone Star and consider ending the abusive program, Human Rights Watch said.
Given the loss of life and human rights abuses associated with Operation Lone Star-including racial discrimination, prolonged detention, and the unjustified use of pepper spray projectiles on immigrants-the state legislature should end appropriations for the program, Human Rights Watch said. In the short term, all state and local law enforcement agencies in Texas should end vehicle pursuits when the only basis for the pursuits is suspected involvement in offenses related to unauthorized migration and other nonviolent offenses, such as traffic offenses.
"Deadly and reckless vehicle pursuits under Operation Lone Star are but one aspect of the program's abuses," said Bob Libal, consultant to Human Rights Watch in Texas who has investigated abuses under the program for nearly three years. "It is beyond time for the Texas legislature to put an end to these pursuits and roll back Operation Lone Star once and for all."
Operation Lone Star: Expensive, Ineffective, and Abusive
Deadly and reckless vehicle pursuits by the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) and other collaborating law enforcement agencies are a part of Operation Lone Star (OLS), a more than $11 billion border security program in Texas. The program sends thousands of DPS and Texas National Guard personnel to the border, provides grants to local law enforcement agencies, and uses state prisons to jail those who are arrested and prosecuted. Operation Lone Star has funded border walls, razor wire, placement of shipping containers as barriers, and the construction of an enormous "forward operating base" near Eagle Pass, Texas.
Human Rights Watch has previously documented the impact of Operation Lone Star, finding that the program has both failed to achieve its stated aim to "deny Mexican Cartels and other smugglers the ability to move drugs and people into Texas" and led to injuries and deaths, racial discrimination, prolonged detention, and a chilling effect on freedom of association and expression.
Human Rights Watch has also documented that Texas National Guard troops deployed under the program repeatedly fired pepper spray projectiles at or near arriving migrants. In June 2024, Human Rights Watch wrote to the Civil Rights Division of the US Department of Justice to raise concerns about reports that national guard members had shot migrants and journalists with pepper spray projectiles, reportedly resulting in injuries and bruises, as well as allegations that national guard members may have physically assaulted several migrants and beaten one migrant man to death in El Paso. The Justice Department has not responded.
In September, the Washington Office on Latin America, a nongovernmental group, documented reports of abuse by Texas law enforcement and National Guard under Operation Lone Star, including the unjustifiable use of kinetic impact projectiles-commonly called rubber bullets-and pepper spray projectiles, beatings, and pushing people into concertina wire. At least 12 national guard members have died from suicide, accidental shootings, or injuries unrelated to direct attacks from migrants while deployed under Operation Lone Star since the program began.
Trump Administration Policies Undermine Public Safety
The violent and punitive nature of the policies under Operation Lone Star look poised to worsen. On January 28, Governor Abbott ordered the Department of Public Safety to deepen its involvement in federal immigration enforcement by deploying "tactical strike teams." The Trump administration has also issued several executive orders and policies that will increase state involvement in immigration enforcement within Texas and throughout the United States. One such executive order, issued on January 20, requires creating federal "Homeland Security Task Forces" involving federal, state, and local law enforcement and the "use of all available law enforcement tools" in immigration enforcement.
Some state and local law enforcement agencies have refrained from participation in immigration enforcement because of concerns that arresting and holding people for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) may be unconstitutional, may involve illegal racial profiling, and is terrifying to immigrants, to the point that they avoid the police even when they desperately need police protection or are witnesses to a crime, which reduces public safety for everyone.
Deadly Pursuits
Since Operation Lone Star began, approximately 95 percent of the pursuits in the counties it covers that involved the Department of Public Safety were initiated by a DPS officer, based on analysis of the department's data. A federal agency initiated fewer than 2 percent of the pursuits. Officers initiated 80 percent of Operation Lone Star pursuits due to "traffic violations." Nearly all traffic violations were categorized as traffic misdemeanors in the department's data.
A Human Rights Watch analysis of news articles published since March 2021 shows that at least 106 people have reportedly been killed and at least 301 people have been injured in vehicle pursuits conducted by Texas state troopers and local law enforcement in counties participating in Operation Lone Star ("OLS counties") since the program began in 2021, some of them children. Ten of those reportedly killed and twenty of the injured were bystanders.
Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw, who has since retired, told the New York Times in 2023 that the department allowed officers to use discretion when pursuing vehicles and authorized a range of other tools to stop vehicles. McCraw said that not giving chase would "reward Mexican cartels."
The department's data suggest that, since Operation Lone Star began, nearly 300 pursuits have resulted in at least 1 person sustaining injuries, about 5 percent of all pursuits in OLS counties. Over half-54 percent-of the department's vehicle pursuits causing injuries statewide have been in OLS counties, even though these counties only hold 15 percent of the state population.
Over 28 percent of pursuits in OLS counties that caused injuries injured at least 1 bystander. These counties also have outsized proportions of pursuits with injuries, accounting for 57 percent of pursuits with injuries to bystanders and 42 percent of pursuits with injuries to law enforcement officers in the state.
In November 2023, in one of the two most deadly vehicle pursuits in Texas since Operation Lone Star began, eight people were killed after a car suspected of carrying migrants crashed into another vehicle following a pursuit by Zavala County Sheriff's deputies, according to USA Today. Zavala is an OLS county. The dead included a driver, four suspected migrants, and two bystanders. In the second very deadly pursuit, in 2021, eight people also died.
In October 2024, a DPS pursuit in El Paso ended in the death of Wendy J. Rodriguez, 44, a mother who was killed on her way to work, when a 17-year-old US citizen crashed into her vehicle after being pursued by DPS troopers, according to the El Paso Times.
Based on the data analyzed, about 16 percent of pursuits in OLS counties have resulted in some amount of property damage. About 650 pursuits resulted in less than $10,000 in property damage, 186 pursuits resulted in $10,000 to $50,000 in property damage, 13 pursuits resulted in $50,000 to $100,000 in property damage, and 5 pursuits resulted in over $100,000 in property damage.
More Pursuits in Operation Lone Star Counties
Operation Lone Star has resulted in a massive increase in the number of pursuits involving the Department of Public Safety, based on analysis of data through August 2024. The 50 percent increase in pursuits from 2021 through 2023 occurred entirely within OLS counties.
Since Operation Lone Star began, approximately 95 percent of the pursuits in OLS counties that involved Department of Public Safety officials were initiated by a DPS officer. Media reports and previous Human Rights Watch investigations make clear that other agencies are sometimes involved. For 80 percent of Operation Lone Star pursuits, DPS reported a misdemeanor traffic violation as the ostensible justification for the pursuit.
When controlling for population size, OLS counties have always had higher rates of pursuits than other Texas counties. Prior to the implementation of Operation Lone Star, future OLS counties had pursuit rates 3 to 5 times higher than other counties. This ratio has skyrocketed, with such pursuits over 10 times higher in OLS counties than in others, and during some months over 20 times higher.
Even during 2024, when pursuits slightly decreased, rates in OLS counties were nearly eight times higher than in other counties. The counties with the highest number of pursuits are Hidalgo and El Paso. Beginning in late 2022, DPS pursuits surged in El Paso County and then began decreasing in late 2023. Even with the decrease, as of late 2024 El Paso County still had the most pursuits of all counties.
According to a report from the El Paso County Attorney's office, El Paso County experienced more than a 725 percent increase in DPS pursuits between 2022 and 2023, the year the program was implemented in the county.
David Stout, the El Paso county commissioner, told Human Rights Watch that he began sounding the alarm about vehicle pursuits in 2023, and that the Commissioners Court directed the El Paso County Attorney to hire an expert to study the issue. The expert found in the resulting report that the DPS pursuit policy does not appropriately restrict pursuits and fails to prioritize public safety because it does not prioritize alternatives to pursuits.
The expert also noted that the International Association of Chiefs of Police states: "The decision to pursue must be based on the pursuing officer's determination that the immediate danger to the officer, the suspect, and the public created by the pursuit is less than the immediate or potential danger to the public should the suspect remain at large." The association also lists various criteria the officer should consider, including the seriousness of the offense and risk factors like physical location and population density-including whether the pursuit would take place in a residential neighborhood, school zone, or business district-and weather and road conditions. The report further says that the department's policy inappropriately places sole decision-making responsibility on the officer involved, lacks needed reporting and review requirements, and allows pursuits in particularly dangerous areas.
El Paso County has encouraged the Department of Public Safety to require officers to engage in pursuit alternatives, prohibit dangerous techniques, mandate public reporting on pursuits, and prioritize public safety by reducing pursuits, particularly in sensitive areas.
Pursuits Increasingly Out of Line with National Standards
Across the United States, police departments have adopted restrictions on when law enforcement can engage in a vehicle pursuit.
Some, such as the Houston Police Department, have adopted policies restricting the use of vehicle pursuits. Such restrictions reflect growing recognition that pursuits lead to a "high risk of loss of life, serious personal injury, and serious property damage," according to a 2022 complaint filed with the Department of Justice by advocacy groups. In fact, when releasing the Houston Police Department's new vehicle pursuit policy in September 2023, Houston Police Chief Troy Finner
