Texas Grand Jury Indicts Over 140 Migrants on Rioting Charges

A Texas grand jury indicted more than 140 migrants on misdemeanor rioting charges Tuesday for an alleged mass effort to cross the US-Mexico border, a day after a judge dismissed the cases.

There were no injuries recorded during the alleged breach on April 12 in El Paso, which investigators claim started when one of the group members cut through a razor wire barrier. A separate incident in the Texas border city in March resulted in mass arrests.

On Monday, a county judge dismissed the charges against individuals arrested this month, citing inadequate probable cause. A public defender representing the migrants claimed there was little proof and accused authorities of seeking to generate headlines.

“The citizens of El Paso, through the grand jury, essentially overruled the judge’s ruling and found probable cause to believe that the riots did occur,” El Paso County District Attorney Bill Hicks told reporters Tuesday.

Kelli Childress-Diaz, the El Paso Public Defender who represents the 141 defendants, said she was not shocked. “I imagine they had that already prepared before the hearing even started yesterday,” she went on to say.

The arrests have focused attention on Texas’ increasing border operations, where Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has implemented a slew of harsh measures in the name of reducing illegal crossings. Following the arrests in March, Abbott stated that he had dispatched 700 extra National Guard men to El Paso.

Hicks, who Abbott appointed to the position in 2022, stated that while it is unusual for a grand jury to indict misdemeanor crimes, he felt it was “fair” to present the cases to them. Hicks said that they had detained over 350 people on riot charges since March.

If convicted, individuals charged could face up to 180 days in county jail and a $2,000 fine. Those in custody are still facing federal charges, and Hicks said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement authorities might still pick them up to process them for illegal entry.

“It turns my stomach that these people are nothing more than, you know, political coins in a bet that some of our government officials have hedged,” Childress-Diaz told Associated Press.