Brownsville is a city of about 182,300 residents located at the southernmost tip of Texas’ Cameron County, near Harlingen and McAllen and directly across the border from Matamoros, Mexico. Prostitution and sex trafficking have posed persistent and visible problems in the community for at least two decades, and have generated complaints to police. Among the more serious issues associated with the city’s commercial sex market are child sex trafficking and international sex trafficking between U.S. and Mexico. For example, in May 2015, for example, an adult male sex trafficker was arrested during a Brownsville Police Department-led investigation at a motel for sex trafficking a 16-year-old girl he had met online and “convinced to sell drugs and begin prostituting.” Three additional men were also arrested during the operation; although some media outlets described the offenders as having “solicited” the victim for acts of prostitution, each was ultimately charged with sexual assault of a child. The details of the investigation were not disclosed. All of the men’s names, ages, professions, and mugshots were released to the public. The BPD was assisted in its efforts by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Office of Professional Responsibility, Homeland Security Investigation Brownsville detectives, and the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force.

To combat the issue, county and local agencies have adopted aggressive and comprehensive approaches to identify and apprehend sex buyers such as, street-level and web-based reverse stings. Brownsville Police Department officers have conducted street-level reverse stings since at least 1995, if not earlier. Such operations have utilized female undercover officers and police informants as decoy sex sellers. During the stings, the decoys may stroll areas known for prostitution activity. When individuals approach the decoy and make an offer of money for sex, they are arrested by a BPD backup team. Law enforcement have also released the names and other identifying information about arrested sex buyers since at least 1995. For example, in 2010, the BPD arrested 12 male sex buyers during a street-level reverse sting operation. The identities and images of arrested sex buyers were included in reports by local news sources.

Some sex buyer arrests have been the product of investigating crimes against real victims, rather than police decoys in sting operations.  For example, in October, 2022, a man confessed to paying a woman for sex after being pulled over by a Brownsville Police Department officer for speeding through downtown Brownsville. Police allege that the man was seen on a downtown surveillance camera picking up a woman at the 900 block of East Washington Street, and police stated that his vehicle then traveled toward Palm Boulevard prior to the traffic stop. During the traffic stop, police said the man confessed to picking up the woman to take her to his residence to pay her in exchange for sex, and that  the incident was not the first time he picked up that woman for paid sex. The man was arrested for solicitation of prostitution, and the woman for prostitution.  The identities of both were publicly disclosed.

Loss of employment is also a consequence of buying sex in the city. For example, in 2015, a former Brownsville third grade teacher was arrested during a web-based multi-agency sex trafficking investigation, linking the former teacher to a 16-year-old sex trafficking victim. The former teacher was one of four men arrested for allegedly sexually exploiting a minor in exchange for money at a local Brownsville motel. According to reports, administrators at the Brownsville Independent School District placed a the former third-grade teacher on paid leave as a result of his arrest.