State Strings Bladed Wire at Border
Where Migrants Surge Undeterred
Capitol Inside
May 14, 2022
Texas National Guard troops braved the sweltering heat on Saturday when they started stringing razor-wire on a patch of the Rio Grande's north shore where hundreds of migrants have been pouring into Eagle Pass throughout the month of May with no resistance from Governor Greg Abbott's Operation Lone Star.
Decked in standard camouflage attire with long sleeves and trousers, the Texas soldiers got an early start on the impromptu border fence construction on a day where temperatures are expected to crack 100 degrees by mid-afternoon. The sharp coils of wire that Texas Guard members installed at the popular mass crossings spot failed to deter a group with more than 100 migrants from making their way across the river into Eagle Pass - the current epicenter of the surge that's expected to intensify with the federal government poised to repeal Title 42 nine days from now.
"Operation Lone Star continues to fill the dangerous gaps left by Biden's refusal to secure the border," Abbott said in a tweet this morning.
The Texas Military Department reportedly put the soldiers on standby to transport bladed wiring across the river for Mexican federal police to use to slow the number of people who are leaving the country en route to the United States. Abbott tweeted promotional photos that show state police from Texas and Coahuila lining both sides of the Rio Grande as a product of deals with Mexican governors.
The river fencing scramble is a sign that Abbott's agreements for ramped up border security in Mexico have had no effect so far on the tidal wave of immigrants into Texas.
The Republican governor said in a Twitter post on Friday that Operation Lone Star forces have apprehended more than 246,000 people in the U.S. illegally since he launched the initiative last spring. That would be an increase of 4,000 in migrant apprehensions is the past week if Abbott's numbers were accurate. The actual number of migrants who state police and military members have rounded up over the course of the past seven days is slightly more than 200 based on the Operation Lone Star public record.
Abbott also asserted in the tweet that OLS has confiscated more than 4,800 weapons since its inception in March 2021 - an increase of 1,000 from a week before. The governor also gave Operation Lone Star credit for 15,000 criminal arrests - a jump of 1,000 in a week as well. Abbott said the state had seized more than 344 million lethal doses of fentanyl - a vault of 40 million in the past three weeks alone.
But Abbott hasn't offered any evidence to support the numbers - a sign that they've been manufactured. The Department of Public Safety and the TMD would be publicizing specific incidents of migrant and drug busts if they really happened to mitigate growing perceptions of secrecy and idleness within the ranks of 10,000 Guard troops who Abbott has deployed at the Rio Grande.
The state appears to be doing nothing to prepare for the incoming tsunami beyond sending migrants to Washington D.C. on buses if they want to go. Abbott touted the scheme in a press release today - saying that the state has sent 922 migrants to the nation's capital on 35 buses since he hatched it on April 6.
The Dallas Morning News reported Saturday that the migrants who Texas is transporting to Washington D.C. have been going unnoticed there since a publicity splash when the first bus showed up outside the Fox News studios. Abbott's office said in the story that Arizona has followed the Texas lead with the first bus of migrants that its sent to Washington D.C. arriving there this week.
“There will be massive bus loads going up there," Abbott said on an Odessa radio show in reaction to the Arizona migrant busing debut. "We’ll be sending even more people out of the state of Texas up and make the leaders in Washington DC deal with it."
Abbott did not mention that the Arizona buses - unlike the Texas fleet - had health care workers and community coordinators on board to make the journey as safe and smooth as possible.
Operation Lone Star has been involved in at least two significant events so far this month. The DPS discovered 203 migrants in two semi-trailer trucks that it pulled over in Webb County on May 5 and May 6.
According to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, federal agents alerted DPS and local police early this week on a red Chevrolet Apache that they suspected to be involving in human trafficking. The truck led DPS officers on a chase near the tiny border town Sullivan City before rolling over when the driver lost control. Border Patrol agents apprehended four migrants - including three who were hospitalized with injuries - who climbed from the truck after the crash. But the suspected migrant smuggler got away.
more to come ... |
