Texas soldiers fire rubber bullets and pepper spray at migrants at border

The Texas National Guard has repeatedly fired pepper spray projectiles at migrants arriving in the state, Human Rights Watch said on September 25.

The Texas National Guard has repeatedly fired pepper spray projectiles at migrants arriving in the state, Human Rights Watch said today. The organization is therefore urging the Texas legislature to reject any increase in funding for the Texas Military Department, which oversees the Texas National Guard, until this practice is eliminated.

In several incidents, including one recently documented by Human Rights Watch, members of the Texas National Guard fired these projectiles—balls loaded with pepper irritants launched from a special gun—at migrants who posed no threat, including women and children. This deployment is part of Operation Lone Star, Texas’s controversial border control program, which has cost more than $11 billion to date.

“In several separate incidents, witnesses this summer saw Guard members fire pepper spray at migrants who posed no risk to anyone, including the Guardsmen themselves,” said Bob Libal, a consultant on Texas issues at Human Rights Watch. “The Texas legislature should act and strengthen oversight of the state Military Department and suspend any increase in its funding until these abuses stop.”

Texas Military Department Adjutant General Thomas Suelzer testified before the Senate Border Security Committee on June 11, 2024, that “use of force is permitted in self-defense or defense of others, but it should be the minimum necessary and proportional to the situation.” He also said that soldiers are trained not to shoot directly at people. “We teach them not to aim at the individual.”

However, on September 7, three witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch said they saw a Guard member shoot four or five times at a migrant who had crossed to the U.S. side of the Rio Grande near Shelby Park in Eagle Pass, Texas. The witnesses said the person was standing near the fence on U.S. soil and was not doing anything that could be interpreted as threatening.

According to witnesses, the projectiles hit the migrant directly, who fell to the ground and did not get up, receiving no assistance from nearby soldiers. The witnesses, who were watching from a park in Piedras Negras, Mexico, asked people in the United States to call 911, since it is not possible to contact American emergency services directly from Mexico.

Eagle Pass resident Josie Rodriguez was one of the people who witnessed the incident while in Piedras Negras. “I saw a national guardsman on the boat point his gun at the man and then shoot him with pepper spray,” she said. “He shot him several times. I saw smoke coming out and the man fell without getting up again. It was clear that they were aiming directly at him, not around or at his feet. It was a very disturbing scene.”

In another incident, on August 5, a group of migrants, including children, reported that projectiles were fired at them, causing burns to their eyes. According to a local media outlet, the Border Patrol denied involvement in the incident and claimed that the National Guard was in charge of the area where the incident occurred.

Under international human rights law, law enforcement may only use force—including less-lethal weapons such as pepper spray projectiles—when strictly necessary and proportional to a legitimate objective. The UN recommends that chemical irritants be used only in the event of “imminent risk of injury.”

Human Rights Watch contacted the Texas Military Department on September 19 to request information about the use of pepper spray projectiles, including the number of times they have been used, the number of people injured, and the policies governing their use. The Military Department responded on September 24 with information on how to submit a public records request.

In June, Human Rights Watch sent a letter to the US Justice Department’s civil rights division expressing concern about reports that National Guard members fired pepper spray projectiles at migrants and journalists, causing injuries and bruises, especially on the mornings of May 28 and 30. In addition, several migrants were reported to have been physically assaulted, including one case in which a migrant was beaten to death in El Paso, Texas, on May 17. To date, the Justice Department has not responded.

In June, an unnamed Texas Military Department official told USA Today that Texas National Guard soldiers had been trained to fire these projectiles in order to saturate the area and deter migrants from approaching the border. The official compared walking over the pepper spray projectiles to “walking through a jalapeño bush.”

The Texas Legislative Budget Board will meet on September 25 in Austin to consider the Military Department’s request to increase the budget from $2.542 billion for the 2023-2024 biennium to $2.546 billion for the 2025-2026 period.

In early September, the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) documented allegations of abuses committed by security forces and the National Guard under Operation Lone Star, including the use of kinetic impact projectiles (commonly called rubber bullets) and pepper spray, as well as physical assaults and pushing people against barbed wire fences.

Human Rights Watch has previously documented the negative impacts of Operation Lone Star, revealing that while it has failed to achieve its stated goal of “stopping drug and human trafficking by Mexican cartels,” it has caused injuries, deaths, racial discrimination, abusive detention conditions, and has had a chilling effect on freedoms of association and expression.

The majority of the Texas Military Department’s budget request—$2.3 billion for 2025-2026—is earmarked to fund forces deployed under a disaster declaration. Since 2021, Governor Greg Abbott has used this declaration to send thousands of soldiers and agents to the border as part of Operation Lone Star.

“These incidents show a disturbing disregard for the well-being and rights of migrants,” Libal concluded. “The Texas legislature has a responsibility to oversee its military and should launch an investigation into the use of pepper spray projectiles against defenseless people.”

Information Source: Human Rights Watch.