Jasper County Sheriff shares thoughts on trip to the U. S.-Mexico border

(The following article was written by Jasper County Sheriff Randee Kaiser and was posted on the Sheriff's Office Facebook page.)

I wanted to share with you some of my observations from a trip I made to the border during the third week of November 2024. I went on this trip along with Newton County Sheriff Chris Jennings and Newton County Sheriff-elect Matt Stewart, Joplin Police Chief Rich Pearson, and Missouri State Senator Jill Carter.

We have all heard the stories about the cartel members and criminals who have been crossing our border at an alarming rate over these recent years, but there is a lot more to this story. This is a story of American citizens whose lives have been seriously disrupted to the point of having to abandon multi-generational ranches near the border out of fear for their safety.

What we don’t hear about are the men who have been raising cattle on their Texas ranches their entire lives, just as their fathers and grandfathers before them, who now, instead of enjoying their remaining years tending to their ranches and enjoying the company of their grandchildren, have to be concerned daily about caravaning cartel members, bearing gang tattoos from some of the most dangerous gangs in the world. When he goes out to check his cattle, he routinely finds the dead bodies of people who succumbed to the unforgiving Texas heat while on their journey across his property.

We don’t hear stories about deputies who go out to their patrol cars to start their shift and find an envelope under the windshield wiper. Inside the envelope are instructions that he should have his shift meeting at a certain location at a certain time to clear the path for cartel activities. Sometimes inside the envelope is money, other times a picture of his wife and kids. The message is clear.

These are the stories that we don’t often hear about. Stories about the cartel threatening and intimidating law enforcement, citizens, and local government officials. Law enforcement officers have to consider the consequences of taking enforcement action and what it might mean if the cartel were to retaliate.

While visiting with Goliad County Sheriff Roy Boyd (pictured above) he used the term “invasion at the southern border”. When I first heard this, I thought to myself that maybe this was a little bit of an overstatement. After just two days of meeting with Sheriffs and citizens of these border counties, I realized this is not an overstatement at all. In fact, it doesn’t go far enough to describe the severity of this situation.

Sheriff Boyd was one of the first to declare an invasion in July of 2022. He then helped form and now heads up the very successful Operation Lone Star Task Force, a multi-agency unit designed to disrupt cartel operations.

While policy changes are certainly on the horizon, we will still be experiencing the repercussions of this “invasion” for many years to come. Missouri Sheriffs along with legislators like Senator Carter will be pushing this coming year for policies that will help to hold those illegal immigrants accountable that come into Missouri and commit crimes against our citizens.

I am glad that Texas has Sheriffs like Roy Boyd who are willing to stand up and fight this problem when others do not. It exemplifies the importance of the role of the Sheriff in our society. Sheriffs truly are the first and last lines of defense, when everything else breaks down, when all else fails, Sheriffs can be counted on to serve their communities and continue the fight against anyone that threatens the sanctity of our constitutional rights as Americans.