Gov. Greg Abbott has applauded the work done by state law enforcement officers who are part of Operation Lone Star for their work in preventing unlawful migration and the smuggling of illicit drugs into the country.
The joint initiative between the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Texas Military Department first began in March 2021 and is meant “to secure the border; stop the smuggling of drugs, weapons, and people into Texas; and prevent, detect, and interdict transnational criminal activity between ports of entry,” reads a release sent to The Dallas Express.
“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,” Abbott declared.
The operation has led to the seizure of more than 453 million lethal doses of fentanyl and the apprehension of over 494,400 unlawful migrants, per the release.
Although Abbott has continually praised the work of Operation Lone Star, some have spoken out against the initiative and claim that it is not as productive as advertised.
A 2022 investigation performed by The Texas Tribune seemingly discovered that arrests made hundreds of miles from the border were credited to Operation Lone Star despite none of the agencies involved in the initiative playing a role in the arrests.
Similarly, a large portion of the roughly 6,500 troops who were an active part of Operation Lone Star in 2022 reported various issues.
A joint investigation by The Army Times and the Tribune determined that one in every five soldiers had “problems with their pay, including being paid late, too little or not at all for months” while also “living in cramped trailers with dozens of troops.”
The investigation apparently found that many of the service members faced “shortages of critical equipment, including cold weather gear, medical equipment and plates for their ballistic vests.”
“Some say they feel underutilized and rarely see migrants while working isolated observation posts that in some cases lacked portable toilets for months,” the report read.
Operation Lone Star also includes a busing program that has transported more than 97,300 unlawful migrants to sanctuary cities across the country since April 2022.
This program has resulted in more than 35,600 people being bused to New York City since August 2022, prompting Mayor Eric Adams to file a lawsuit against the 17 Texas bus companies involved.
Adams claims that Abbott admitted to helping with the transport “without having the companies transporting those migrants pay for the cost of continued care in violation of New York’s Social Services Law,” as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
The defendants in the lawsuit include four North Texas companies, including two with offices in Dallas.
The governor has stood firm in his decision to transport these people to New York City, saying during an interview with Fox News that Adams should file a lawsuit against President Joe Biden instead.
“The mayor sued the wrong party. If the mayor is really trying to cut down on the number of illegal immigrants coming into New York, he needs to be suing Joe Biden, not these bus companies,” Abbott claimed. “Because it is Joe Biden and Joe Biden’s policies that’s causing the massive, multimillion influx into the United States that leads to many of them wanting to go to New York.”
