Operation Lone Star

As Texas continues its multi- effort to secure the border, state lawmakers were told this week that most of the people charged with smuggling immigrants over a recent 12-month period were U.S. citizens.

Since Abbott's Operation Lone Star began in 2021, at least 17 Texas National Guardsman have died from a multitude of causes, including a drowning in an attempt to save migrants, negligent discharge of a personally owned weapon and suicides.

Senate Bill 602 was touted as another force multiplier on the border. But almost a year after the law went into effect, the program has yet to get off the ground.

El Paso County is asking the governor to help cover the mounting cost of using local jail space for Operation Lone Star arrests.

Texas has sent thousands of soldiers to the border as part of Gov. Greg Abbott’s multibillion-dollar initiative Operation Lone Star. No border town has felt their presence more than Eagle Pass.

Groups of anti-migrant vigilantes are operating with impunity and new reporting finds they are getting cooperation from local law enforcement and immigration agents—with alarming results. Also, a new ACLU reports finds that Operation Lone Star is racially profiling and arresting people who pose no threat to public safety.

The ACLU of Texas report said a majority of those arrested under Gov. Greg Abbott's border initiative posed no threat to public safety.

Abbott has credited his Operation Lone Star for a recent drop in migrant encounters on the Texas-Mexico border.

The tense moment Thursday occurred at a time when the El Paso Sector of U.S. Border Patrol has seen about 1,000 migrant encounters per day.

The law would have allowed local and state police to arrest a person who allegedly interviewed the country illegally. It was scheduled to go into effect but lawsuits filed by the U.S. Justice Department and civil and immigrant rights groups argued in court the legislation