Gov. Greg Abbott looked back at the work of the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Texas National Guard during 2023 and applauded the two agencies for a historic year as they worked together to accomplish the goals of Operation Lone Star, as he highlighted accomplishments of the program.
The initiative, which began in March 2021, is a joint operation meant to manage the ongoing surge of unlawful migrants into the state.
“Operation Lone Star continues to fill the dangerous gaps created by the Biden Administration’s refusal to secure the border,” read a news release from the Office of the Texas Governor.
“Every individual who is apprehended or arrested and every ounce of drugs seized would have otherwise made their way into communities across Texas and the nation due to President Joe Biden’s open border policies.”
One of the first major steps taken by Abbott in 2023 was the introduction of the New Texas Border Czar Mike Banks, who the governor said was “the perfect choice to oversee Texas’ fight against the surge of illegal immigration, lethal drugs, and deadly weapons flowing into our state and nation.”
One major aspect of the initiative highlighted by Abbott is the busing of unlawful migrants to sanctuary cities across the country.
Since the busing program began in 2022, Texas has bused more than 92,000 unlawful migrants to six different sanctuary cities across the country.
The Lone Star State also recently began flying unlawful migrants to the sanctuary city of Chicago, with the first flight containing roughly 120 unlawful migrants.
The second flight in this escalation, which landed on Saturday night, carried 350 unlawful migrants who arrived in Rockford, Illinois, and will be transported to Chicago, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
These flights come in response to a significant increase in encounters at the border. U.S. Customs and Border Protection confirmed over 300,000 encounters with unlawful migrants at the southern border in December, marking the highest number of encounters during a single month.
September was the previous record holder with 269,735 encounters.
Abbott recently signed multiple border security bills into law in another attempt to manage this crisis, including a controversial law that will make unlawful entry into the state a crime.
Senate Bill 4 will also allow state law enforcement officers to apprehend those suspected of unlawfully entering the state.
Despite Abbott expressing his support for the bill, the U.S. Department of Justice has already warned the governor that legal action could be pursued if the state chooses to enforce the law.
Operation Lone Star also attempts to slow down the illegal smuggling of drugs across the border. State law enforcement officers have seized more than 450 million lethal doses of fentanyl since the beginning of Operation Lone Star, according to another release.