Operation Lone Star

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

Amid the growing standoff between the state and federal government on Texas’ southern border, advocacy groups are joining Democrats in a call for the Biden administration to act more forcefully.

The Fifth Circuit will still hear oral arguments in the case early next month.

Governor Greg Abbott issued a “Statement on Texas’ Constitutional Right to Self-Defense,” following calls by numerous Republican lawmakers to resist the high court’s order, including three state representatives from Houston.

She said the recent deaths were part of a larger pattern for Gov. Greg Abbott and Operation Lone Star on the border.