The U.S.-Mexico border is perhaps the most widely discussed and poorly understood region in the country.
MAGA influencers and nationalistic politicians have inaccurately portrayed border communities as dangerous crime hotspots akin to a warzone and overwhelmed by asylum-seekers. In reality, border communities—at least on the U.S. side—are some of the country’s safest.
Joe Frank Martinez is the sheriff of Val Verde County, home to the border city of Del Rio. He’s a conservative Democrat: He’s pro-gun and anti-abortion, and he supports Governor Greg Abbott’s multi-billion-dollar Operation Lone Star militarization mission, which has flooded South Texas with police and soldiers and new stretches of border wall.
In summer 2021, Del Rio was thrown into the national spotlight when nearly 20,000 Haitian migrants came to the city’s border to seek refuge.
In recent years, previously Democratic strongholds among the state’s border communities have shifted to the right politically as Trump has made significant gains among Latino Texans, including in 81-percent-Hispanic Val Verde County. In the 2016 presidential election, only 43 percent of voters in Val Verde went for Trump. In 2024, that number increased to almost 63 percent.
A county top cop’s job is local policing, but even Martinez’s position has recently been politicized, and some of his community members expect him to take a tougher stance on immigration. In his most recent bid for sheriff, he was pressured to change parties, but he prevailed easily as a Democrat.
The Texas Observer spoke to Martinez about Operation Lone Star, South Texas voters’ rightward shift, and the realities of living on the border.
TO: Border crossings are at a historic low. Do you think Texas should cut back on Operation Lone Star funding?
I don’t, not at this time. I agree with the stance that the governor’s taking. We have a processing center [for Operation Lone Star] that was very instrumental in the arrests that DPS was making initially. In Val Verde County, there’s 443 charges pending on individuals that did not appear to court. I know that in Kinney County, there’s a little over 1,900. There’s 100-something in Dimmit [County]. All these individuals are gonna be arrested somewhere throughout the state—and they’re gonna be brought back to the county of arrest. So you can’t burden the local jails to house these individuals. My taxpayers shouldn’t be burdened with that financial loss.
OLS funds need to be looked at different. How can they still continue to support what’s going on? At the front door, you were there to make all the arrests. But at the back door, you still have to wait for the prosecution. A lot of these individuals are coming back to those counties where they were arrested. So don’t pull the rug out from under us just yet.
Immigration enforcement has historically been the role of the federal government, but the push for an expansion of 287(g) agreements expands those duties to local beat cops and sheriff’s deputies. Do you view immigration enforcement as a job that should also be tasked to local law enforcement?
I do not, not in our communities. We’re right at the front line, so we have plenty of Border Patrol agents to do their job. If we make a detention of an individual whose immigration status is questioned, we’re gonna call Border Patrol. I may have three to four deputies work in a single shift, patrolling 3,200 square miles. I’m not gonna deprive my citizens of calls for service because my deputies are tied up handling an immigration issue. It’d take anywhere from two to three minutes to get a Border Patrol agent on site. So we’ll just turn it over to Border Patrol.
What misconceptions do you think Americans have about life in border communities?
They don’t know what we experience—or don’t experience—on a day-to-day basis. Some of those people that are commenting or viewing from a million miles away don’t have a clue. I invite those people to come to the border and take a tour of the border at any time. Give me a call. Right now, they’re not gonna see anything, ’cause nothing’s happening. Governor Abbott has a border wall that is being constructed there in Val Verde County from Lake Amistad south along the river to Del Rio. And that’s gonna help protect my community.
My disagreement with that is that it put some of my residents on the wrong side of that wall. About 87-88 residents. Those people that have lived out there, overall, their entire lives. Some of those are absentee owners. I visited … with a handful of them. They don’t like looking at the structure. But for safety, they know what they need to do to protect their property. They can’t leave anything laying out in their yard because it might get hauled off. Somebody swims across the river and loads it on a boat, takes it back or whatever. So there’s mixed feelings on that. But for the most part, that wall … is really going to help [with] moving the flow of traffic away from my community.
In recent years, voters in many Texas border counties have moved to the right politically. Have you felt the impact of this shift in your community?
So at the local level, no. At the federal level, because of the previous administration, you could feel that shift, people going to the right. I might have lost some voters for my stance. I came out on top in that election, so that’s all that matters. I will continue to maintain my principles. I’m more conservative, more middle of the road. In our county government, we have five or six elected Republicans; everybody else is a Democrat.
You were pressured to change parties in this recent election, correct? What was that like and why did you choose to not change parties?
I want to stand on my morals and principles. I saw back in the ’60s and ’70s when my dad fought for the underprivileged in our communities. I helped as a young kid [to] dig post holes to put a mailbox on for the people that had no mail service, and that’s what that group was fighting for back in the day. This is a group of people that were Democrat back in the day. Friends of my dad. That’s what they fought for, to be equal. They had no mail service, some of our colonias. Just because I don’t agree with what they’re doing at the federal level, I’m not gonna abandon my beliefs just to go along with the flow. My beliefs and principles have remained steady and I’m not going to change.
Have your community’s expectations of your job changed as a result of increased border crossings in recent years?
There’s a group on the far right that wishes I’d done things a little bit different. There’s a photo out there of me helping a lady and a child out of the river. They were already on U.S. soil. What kind of human would I be if I couldn’t help a fellow human? What that picture doesn’t show is that that lady and that child were turned over to Border Patrol immediately within 30 seconds. Throughout my community, there’s guys that won’t talk to me because I helped the lady out of the river. Technically, she was in the U.S. already. It was no different than if I’m with somebody that’s coming across private land somewhere and is dehydrated or whatever, with me helping them by giving them water. No different.
When you recently introduced Governor Abbott to give a speech at the Texas Border Sheriff’s Coalition conference, you spoke about a 2021 event in Del Rio that you referred to as “the Haitian invasion”, as if the migrants were trying to cross for a foreign army. Why did you use the term “invasion”?
People have classified it as an invasion. That comes from the federal government, or comes from comments made by the public. There were masses of people. There [were] 19,000 people underneath that bridge, and they were just coming and going as they pleased. I guess that’s how I’ve referred to it. “Haitian invasion” just sounds right. People were coming and going, nothing was being done. It does ring like a military term, but I’m not a military person. My federal partners and my state partners and my deputies, they struggled over those 16 days trying to make sure that nobody died. There was … one baby born underneath that bridge. Things were out of control.
I was asking if you view that—to call it “invasion”—as dehumanizing language. I was wondering how you square that up with the fact that you also helped people out of the river.
I picked it up from comments being made at that time by either some of our federal or state representatives. I don’t know. … It’s a term that just stuck. To change it now to something else—you know, I’m not going to do that. The situation has kind of calmed down. So I have to think about that question, your questioning on the term of “invasion,” and evaluate it, see how I move forward.
Is there anything else that you wish people knew about your job as a border sheriff?
Before people start commenting on the border, come visit the border. Right now there’s nothing going on. I took a group … of about 12-14 people to the border. They thought it was a war zone. I took them on a border tour [during the Biden administration]. Their tone changed completely. They thought they had to wear helmets and vests and all that kind of stuff. It’s not a war zone. These [migrants] are people that try to come across to find a better way of life. At the same time, they see what I go through, so it kind of puts it into perspective. They’re not looking at it anymore from a million miles away. They’re right there. I invite you to go to the border.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
