Texas Highway Patrol officers ride past migrants attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border along the Rio Grande in Eagle Pass, Texas, on Saturday, Aug. 31, 2024. (Chitose Suzuki, The Dallas Morning News/TNS)
AUSTIN, Texas (Tribune News Service) — Frustrated with President Joe Biden’s policies related to immigration enforcement, Gov. Greg Abbott launched Operation Lone Star in March 2021, deploying National Guard soldiers and state troopers to the border with Mexico.
The goal was to make border crossings more difficult by installing razor wire and other physical barriers along the Rio Grande and, further inland, to arrest suspected undocumented migrants for trespassing and other state criminal charges.
That first year, Abbott shifted almost $1 billion from several state agencies, including the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, to support the operation. With later allocations from the Texas Legislature, a total of $11 billion in state money has been spent on Operation Lone Star — and Abbott recently asked lawmakers for another $2.9 billion to run the program through 2027.
The money has paid for more than 100 miles of razor wire, more than 45 miles of a state-built border wall, and a 1,000-foot-long buoy barrier on the Rio Grande. The operation also has bused more than 119,400 migrants from Texas to six Democratic-run cities across the country and built a military base near Eagle Pass to house Texas National Guard soldiers.
More than 522,800 migrants had been apprehended under Operation Lone Star as of Oct. 3, including 47,640 criminal arrests — 11,890 for trespassing.
Abbott, a Republican who has been governor since 2015, has raised his national profile with aggressive border policies, including taking over an Eagle Pass park in January that had been a popular spot for border crossings. In February, Abbott hosted a border visit by GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, who praised the governor’s response and called him a possible running mate.
Abbott has vowed to continue his focus on border security.
“Texas will not back down in our fight to secure the border from illegal immigration, dangerous criminals, and deadly drugs,” he wrote in a September social media post that included video of border wall panels being installed in Maverick County in South Texas.
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