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Gov. Greg Abbott directed troopers to the Rio Grande Valley on Monday to assist U.S. Border Patrol personnel as a part of his efforts to help the Trump administration’s border insurance policies.
The troopers departed from Fort Value and Houston on Monday.
The assertion from the governor’s workplace defined that Abbott directed the Texas Army Division to coordinate with the Trump administration’s plans.
It was a change from the Republican governor’s authorized battles with the Biden administration. Abbott spent the final 4 years testing a state’s capacity to implement immigration legislation — at occasions at odds with Border Patrol.
Now with Trump in workplace, it seems that Operation Lone Star will probably be working in lock step with the federal authorities.
“Texas has a associate within the White Home we will work with to safe the Texas-Mexico border,” Abbott mentioned within the assertion.
RELATED: ICE begins immigration raids throughout Texas, dozens arrested
The 400 troopers have been from the Texas Tactical Border Pressure, which was characterised in 2023 as a assist drive for troopers already mobilized underneath Operation Lone Star. C-130s and Chinook helicopters have been additionally deployed.
The Pentagon introduced final week that it has begun deploying greater than 1,500 lively responsibility troops to numerous elements of the border, together with in Texas.
Greater than 10,000 Texas Nationwide Guardsmen have been mobilized on state active-duty orders to assist Abbott’s border initiative.
Abbott launched Operation Lone Star nearly 4 years in the past in response to what he known as “the Biden Administration’s harmful border coverage.” The state has since spent $11 billion of Texas taxpayer {dollars} to fund the operation, with $6 billion going towards paying the guardsmen and Border Patrol personnel stationed on the border.
There are limits to what the troopers are allowed to do, nevertheless. Troopers are unable to behave as a legislation enforcement underneath the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, a federal legislation that prohibits using lively army personnel to conduct civilian legislation enforcement actions.
Through the 2024 presidential marketing campaign, Trump promised supporters that he would safe the border and proposed different harsh immigration insurance policies, together with mass deportations. Through the first week of his second time period, he signed government orders calling the border disaster an “invasion.”
In gentle of the tone of these orders, it was unclear how the army will probably be used on the border. Because of the federal legal guidelines presently in place, troopers might solely assist the Border Patrol brokers actively participating with immigrants trying to cross.
Abbott not too long ago despatched a letter to Congress asking for the federal authorities to pay the $11 billion again to Texas.
“I launched Operation Lone Star (OLS) to fight these threats to all People,” Abbott’s letter learn.” This success got here at a value, which fell squarely on the shoulders of Texas taxpayers however ought to have been the federal authorities’s duty.”
The governor’s workplace has not outlined the way forward for Operation Lone Star.
