DPS surge resulted in harassment of border-area drivers

Grits isn't sure at this point why journalists bother examining performance outcomes or cost-benefit analyses when it comes to immigration or border security. Somewhere during the 2016 presidential campaign cycle, debates on these subjects passed wholly through the looking glass and pols now feel free to just say stuff without any reference to facts or reality.

Regardless, the Dallas News gamely demonstrated yet again, if further evidence were really necessary, that Texas' much-ballyhooed border security buildup has been a public safety bust. During the period after the DPS surge began, traffic tickets in areas with expanded patrols increased slightly. But the big change came in traffic stops resulting in warnings, which skyrocketed more than five-fold almost immediately.

That means DPS is stopping a lot more people but in most cases there isn't enough criminality present even to justify giving them a ticket. So tens of thousands of South Texans were being subjected to unjustified pretext stops which are basically fishing expeditions, not detentions based on legitimate public safety needs. Justifiably, reported the Morning News:

some critics continue to charge that DPS remains unable to prove real success at the border beyond boosting traffic enforcement. 

“For that level of scrutiny on your driving habits, what are we getting?” said Rep. Poncho Nevarez, an Eagle Pass Democrat who serves as vice chairman of the House Homeland Security and Public Safety Committee.

Moreover, both citations and warnings dropped steeply across the rest of the state as DPS diverted resources to staff up the border surge, found the paper's analysis. "Comparing the two years after the surge against the two years before, citations spiked 30 percent and warnings rose 160 percent in Starr and Hidalgo counties. In nonborder counties, meanwhile, citations dropped 21 percent and warnings fell 25 percent."

Some individuals were subjected to a level of intervention which can only be described as harassment. Almost unbelievably, "Looking at the 22 months after the surge began, The News found more than 600 people in Starr and Hidalgo counties who were stopped at least 10 times. More than 300 were stopped at least 20 times. One person was pulled over 52 times in that time period."

With the new president pledging to begin construction of his "beautiful" new wall on "day one," we're already hearing open discussion among Texas Republicans of ending DPS' border deployment and letting the feds handle the job. Even though that's clearly a self-justifying fig leaf, IMO legislative critics should let them have this one, take "yes" for an answer, and seek to end the $800-million-per-biennium pork package, freeing up the money to use for other priorities.

State leadership isn't going to end this wasteful boondoggle because it's failing to achieve good outcomes or doesn't make cost-benefit sense. That ship long ago sailed. We must recognize that this budget item originated as a partisan slap at the Obama Administration, not in response to real-world public-safety threats. So, having been spawned of overt partisanship, that's probably the only basis on which the DPS surge can realistically be rolled back while giving state leadership sufficient political cover. I'd be fine with that.