Gov. Greg Abbott has sent a sternly worded letter to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris about securing a contentious piece of the Lone Star State known as Fronton Island.
The conflict over Fronton Island recently intensified when the Biden-Harris administration, through its appointee to the U.S. Section of the International Boundary and Water Commission, demanded that Texas revert Fronton Island to its “prior condition.”
Abbott condemned what he describes as a federal attempt to undermine Texas’ efforts to control the island, which has been a hotspot for transnational criminal activity involving drug cartels and human traffickers, according to a recent press release regarding the letter from the governor’s office.
“For years, the cartels were ‘running rampant’ in Fronton Island’s ‘thick vegetation’ and ‘bullet-pocked structures’ along the river to stage illegal entries, surveil state and federal law enforcement, stash weapons, plant explosives, evade apprehension, and engage in open warfare against rival cartels and against state and federal officers,” reads the letter.
Abbott’s letter firmly rejects the administration’s request, accusing it of supporting “open border policies that endanger Texans and Americans.”
He also said that Texas could not afford to allow the island to remain a stronghold for such criminal organizations.
In October 2023, the Texas Department of Public Safety’s drones captured rising scenes of violence from cartel activities just south of Fronton Island, with cartel members setting off explosives on the opposite side of the Rio Grande, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
Texas Department of Public Safety Lt. Chris Olivarez, a department spokesperson, released footage of the explosions and noted how the island’s criminal activity had become more active.
“Cartel Operatives continue to carry out their acts of violence & escalate their intimidation tactics directly across [Fronton Island],” Olivarez wrote in a post on social media last October.
The cartel explosions came less than a month before Abbott declared that Texas authorities had gained “operational control” over Fronton Island.
“As Commander-in-Chief of the military forces of this State, I determined that Texas could not ignore an ongoing invasion of its sovereign territory,” Abbott’s letter explains. “On October 5, 2023, Texas responded to this threat by moving a ‘heavily armed invasion force’ onto Fronton Island to secure it against the transnational criminal cartels. I will not cede state land to transnational criminal cartels smuggling people, weapons, and drugs. Nor will I sit idly by as these threats endanger Texas law enforcement and Texas communities.”