Cash is piling up in border crackdown cases
BRACKETTVILLE — One rural Texas county could rake in some serious cash under Gov. Greg Abbott’s “catch-and-jail” border security initiative from the bonds posted to free migrants imprisoned on low-level trespassing charges.
More than $2 million in bond funds are now sitting in a Kinney County bank account, according to the sheriff ’s office and a roster of migrant arrestees obtained by the Texas Tribune. Technically, the money still belongs to family members and supporters who handed over cash to get migrants out of state prisons, but county officials have taken steps that make it difficult for some to get that money back.
Those putting up cash for loved ones are being required to sign away their right to recover the money. Local judges are trying to make defendants attend court in person to qualify to get cash back, even if they’ve since been deported. And for money to be returned, the onus has been put on the migrant to pursue it in court.
Defense attorneys and civil rights groups are crying foul, worried the conservative county is creating a new cash flow from migrants’ pockets to its own coffers. The border community’s total annual budget is just shy of $12 million.
“The bottom line is we have individuals who put up thousands of dollars to get their loved ones out of custody as they’re entitled to under the law,” said Amrutha Jindal, the chief defender for Operation Lone Star with the Lubbock Private Defenders Office. “And even if their loved one followed all the rules of the court and did exactly what they were supposed to do, they haven’t gotten their money back, and that’s really disturbing.”
But Kinney County Sheriff Brad Coe waved away concerns that bonds would be wrongly kept by the county. He suggested that in a new system of aggressively prosecuting migrants on criminal trespassing charges, things
will be smoothed out.
“Nobody on the border has prosecuted for criminal trespassing before,” he said. “So are there going to be hiccups? Yes, there are going to be some hiccups.”
In Texas, most criminal defendants are eligible to get out of jail on bail while their cases are pending, typically by posting a certain amount of money to ensure they show up to hearings. If the defendant appears in court and follows any conditions of release throughout their proceedings, the money is supposed to go back to the person who put up the cash or the defendant.
If the defendant misses court or fails to meet other conditions, the county can file to have the bond forfeited and keep the cash.
Thousands held
Since July, when state police began arresting men suspected of illegally crossing the border, about 3,000 migrants in Kinney County have been arrested and accused only of trespassing on private property, according to the jail roster obtained this month. More than a thousand of those migrants were released on cash bonds, set at about $2,200.
(Bail bonds companies, which often front the full amount of a defendant’s bail in exchange for a nonrefundable fee, don’t like to bond out migrants, so trespassing defendants have posted the full amount of their bail in cash.)
In recent months, cases have started wrapping up, and some of that money should be going back to the people who posted it. It’s unclear how many people are now eligible to get their money back, but the county clerk said that as of Wednesday only one person has gotten their bond money returned, with a few more checks set to be mailed soon.
The first migrant to have a bond returned did not contest a trespassing conviction after being deported. The man’s court-appointed attorney said she got the money back by driving to Kinney County, asking the judge to have the clerk write a check out to her and wiring the money to her client in Mexico. Bonds in the handful of other cases are set to be returned by mail after defense attorneys filed motions asking the court to send the money to specific people.
Some defense attorneys argue that Kinney County officials have erected unnecessary barriers to keep migrants and their loved ones from the cash. In neighboring Val Verde County, for example, the prosecutor has been taking the initiative to ensure that bonds are refunded. And in larger counties, like Harris, defense attorneys say courts have systems set up to begin the refund processes without defendants having to go back to a judge and ask for their money.
“You couldn’t design a
better system to forfeit cash bonds than the one Kinney County has come up with,” said Kristin Etter, a defense attorney with Texas Riogrande Legal Aid, a group that has represented hundreds of migrants in Kinney County.
Civil rights groups are particularly incensed by a new county policy that runs counter to typical bond arrangements, and which they argue is illegal and criminal. Texas statute requires that funds be returned to the person who put up the bond — be it a family member, friend or attorney — or, if no one has a receipt, to the defendant.
Waiver issue
But Kinney County is now requiring those posting bond for migrants to sign a form waiving their right to the money. Brent Smith, the county’s prosecutor for misdemeanors, said the money instead will be returned to the defendant himself. A majority of men who bonded out have since been removed from the country by immigration officials, however, and the county clerk said he will not mail funds out of the country.
A San Antonio attorney working for Smith said the civil rights groups have misinterpreted the policy, which he said is meant to ensure that the defendant and the poster don’t both try to claim the money. The waiver makes it so cash by default will go only to the defendant, but he said a migrant can ask the court for permission to release it to someone else.
“It is certainly not done that way in order to hamper their ability to get the bond back,” said the attorney, Tony Hackebeil. “The only reason it’s done that way is to ensure that the bond will be returned to the right person.”
The Texas Fair Defense Project and the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas have condemned the waiver as a way to keep people from taking back money owed to them. Late last month, the civil rights groups sent a cease-anddesist letter to the county.
“While the waivers themselves are facially invalid and unenforceable, even the act of having people sign such waivers — especially family and friends desperate to get their loved ones out of prison — can dissuade them from seeking to recover money that they are rightfully entitled to when criminal cases are resolved,” the civil rights groups said.
Hackebeil conceded the county could probably get rid of the waiver but would still need a way to make sure multiple people don’t try to claim the same bond.
Lawyers also have blasted the county for setting jury trials requiring defendants to show up in person, even if they were deported.
A University of Houston law professor with expertise in bail practices said Kinney County’s waiver and other roadblocks to rightful owners receiving their money looks bad.
“The fact that there’s this attempt to deprive people of a legally defined right to pick up that money suggests that there’s an effort here to make it easier for the county to keep money,” said Sandra Guerra Thompson. “It doesn’t really pass the smell test.”