Greg Abbott Celebrates Texas Border Win

Texas Governor Greg Abbott said Tuesday that Operation Lone Star, his campaign to block irregular migration, “is working” after U.S. Customs and Border Protection published figures showing a sharp decrease in illegal crossings into the Lone Star State.

Abbott shared an article from a conservative-leaning publication that cited CBP data released on March 22 showing that in the first five months of the 2024 fiscal year (October to February), the number of encounters between migrants suspected of crossing into the U.S. illegally and law enforcement fell by 28 percent in Texas. Over the same period, it increased by 35 percent and 52 percent, respectively, in California and Arizona. Both states have a Democratic governor.

Illegal immigration has triggered a wave of tension between Abbott and the federal government over the past few months, with the Supreme Court ruling in January that federal agents could remove razor wire placed along the Texas-Mexico border on the governor’s orders. Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee in the 2024 presidential election, has made cracking down on irregular migration one of the focuses of his campaign for a second White House term.

Tuesday, Abbott shared an article on X by MRCTV, a conservative blog, that claimed, based on CBP figures, border crossings had decreased sharply into Texas while rising for California and Arizona.

“Operation Lone Star is working. Look at the graph in this story,” the governor wrote.

“Illegal crossings are going down in TX while at the same time they are skyrocketing in CA & AZ. It’s b/c of the border wall, razor wire barriers, the National Guard & arrests by DPS,” he continued, referring to the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Abbott launched Operation Lone Star in 2021 to combat irregular migration into Texas as a joint scheme involving the Texas Military Department and Texas Department of Public Safety.

CBP data showed that all five of Texas’ border control regions registered declines between October and February, with the highest being at Big Bend and El Paso, at -65 percent and -47 percent, respectively.

These were followed by Laredo at -38 percent, Rio Grande Valley at -23 percent and Del Rio at -6 percent. By contrast, Tucson, a CBP border region in Arizona, saw a 167 percent increase, and San Diego in California recorded a 76 percent rise.

According to its website, MRCTV was created to “defend and preserve America’s founding principles and Judeo-Christian values.” Newsweek contacted Abbott’s press office for comment by email outside normal working hours.

Speaking to Newsweek in January, Arizona Republican Kari Lake, who lost the state’s gubernatorial election to Democrat Katie Hobbs in November 2022 but has refused to concede defeat, said Abbott’s crackdown had sparked a surge of illegal border crossings into her home state.

She said: “Because Greg Abbott is now working to secure the border in Texas we’re seeing an influx of people pouring across our border even more so than we had in previous months. The Tucson sector is being overrun with people from 168 different countries.”

Lake went on to say the Biden administration’s policy amounted to “the largest human trafficking operation the world has ever known” and that individual states had the “right and duty” to take action in response.

According to CBP data, law enforcement recorded 2.4 million migrant encounters at the southern border during the 2023 fiscal year, up from about 1.7 million in 2021.

On March 19, a federal appeals court put Texas Senate Bill 4, which would allow state law enforcement to arrest and deport irregular migrants, on hold hours after it had been approved in a 6-3 Supreme Court judgment. The Abbott-backed legislation has sparked controversy as immigration is typically seen as the federal government’s responsibility.