Op Lone Star Records First Bust
in Month as Abbott Counts Soar

Capitol Inside
June 24, 2022

Operation Lone Star appeared to be back in action on Friday after a long hiatus when the Department of Public Safety tweeted a video that shows officers busting a human smuggling attempt after a high-speed chase through a residential neighborhood in the Texas border town of San Ygnacio. The incident ended with the apprehension of seven migrants while the trafficker who'd been driving a black SUV got away.

The social media post today @TxDPSSouth marked the first Operation Lone Star tweet in more than a month on actual accomplishments on the ground in terms of actions like migrant apprehensions, arrests and drug seizures. The border security mission that Governor Greg Abbott is directing disappeared from the DPS Twitter page for almost three weeks after a mass school shooting in Uvalde on May 24.

The Texas Military Department ramped up production of public relations videos and photographs during the month that passed after a teenage gunman killed 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary. Up until the DPS post today on the smuggling event disruption in the tiny Zapata County hamlet 30 miles south of Laredo, the last Operation Lone Star tweet on a real achievement came on May 23 when the Texas National Guard apprehended roughly 150 migrants on private property in an unspecified location on the Rio Grande. The U.S. Border Patrol gave the DPS credit for rounding up of 20 migrants at a stash house hotel in Laredo on June 1. But there's been no mention of the Texas state police in USBP reports on its activities since that point.

That leaves Operation Lone Star with a mere seven migrant apprehensions in the past three weeks based on the state and federal records. But Abbott declared today nonetheless that the initiative OLS has culminated in more than 265,500 migrant apprehensions since its conception 15 months ago - an increase of 1,600 compared to the number he cited on Twitter six days ago on June 18.

Based on the governor's running totals - the state made 160 criminal arrests with 300 additional felony charges during that same span of time this week. The arrest numbers wouldn't add up unless the category criminal arrests is reserved for misdemeanor offenses in the OLS vernacular.

Abbott's migrant apprehension count is almost identical to the number that USBP agents have reported in the past six days in Texas - raising the specter that the governor is simply giving Operation Lone Star credit for those that federal agents have made with or without assistance from the state. But record numbers of USBP apprehensions on or near the Texas border in the El Paso, Rio Grande and Del Rio districts last month create the impression that the state border security mission has been inconsequential at best.

Abbott is contending that he backed down a caravan that had been traveling to Texas with 15,000 members for two weeks before dispersing in northern Mexico. Abbott has relied on far right media to get the message out on the ostensible disbanding of the caravan as a consequences of Coahuila state police tactics as part of an agreement that the governor there signed with Abbott in April.

The governor has received little attention on the caravan heroics from the mainstream media, which has been preoccupied with a mass school shooting in Uvalde. Abbott knows that victory will be short-lived with the caravan's members coming to Texas in smaller groups at some point soon.

more to come ...

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

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