Operation Lone Star: Texas Calls for Volunteers to Hold the Line at Southern Border
With the recent flood of Haitian illegal immigrants a constant reminder of the precarious nature of border safety in Joe Biden’s America, Texas is calling for volunteers to help secure its border.
Officials of the Texas Military Department and the Texas Department of Public Safety have issued a call for State Guard members to volunteer to protect Texas through Operation Lone Star, a state-funded effort launched this spring by Gov. Greg Abbott to pick up the slack when federal officials allowed the border to become a sieve.
“We are still looking for Texas Guardsmen to support Operation Lone Star. Please help us stop human trafficking, smuggling, and illegal border crossings while we are #securingtexas Lodging and per diem included,” the department wrote in a Twitter post last week.
We are still looking for Texas Guardsmen to support Operation Lone Star. Please help us stop human trafficking, smuggling, and illegal border crossings while we are #securingtexas
Lodging and per diem included.Click here for more information https://t.co/F3itNkXZar pic.twitter.com/bUZuZ6uc2S
— Texas Military Dept (@TXMilitary) September 23, 2021
“Texas continues to work diligently to secure our southern border under the leadership of Governor Abbott,” DPS Director Steven McCraw said, according to a news release posted on the department’s website.
He said that there is “tangible evidence of how combined local and state operations being conducted are protecting communities across the nation.”
McCraw said, “Operation Lone Star is preventing crime despite the federal government’s failure to provide the brave men and women of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection [with] the infrastructure, technology and personnel needed to secure the border.”
Through Operation Lone Star, Texas forces are “confronting the crisis and cracking down on the cartels and human traffickers daily. Texas Guard soldiers provide boots on the ground, and other valuable assets, to help identify illegal activity and apprehend illegal immigrants,” he said.
“The Texas Military Department is made up of Texans who come from communities across our great state; we are always ready and always there to support our partner agencies in protecting our home and preventing criminal elements from entering Texas,” Maj. Gen. Tracy Norris, the adjutant general of Texas, said in the news release.
“We have a long history of enduring relationships with local, state and federal agencies in conducting Homeland Security missions that dates back more than 100 years and we are proud to continue this legacy as Texans serving Texas.”
Through early September, Operation Lone Star referred 64,900 illegal immigrants to federal officials, according to Breitbart.
Texas law enforcement has also made more than 5,000 criminal arrests and seized more than four tons of illegal drugs, Breitbart reported.
DPS Lt. Christopher Olivarez said the work is not easy, according to KVEO-TV in Brownsville, Texas.
“Troopers that work along the border, they deal with this day in and day out,” Olivarez said.
“But the numbers that we are seeing this year have been historic, just the surge of migrants that have been coming across, the criminal activity, the increase in vehicle pursuits, we have never seen that before in prior years.”
Texas DPS Regional Director Victor Escalon told KVEO that children are often used by smugglers.
“The adults were getting away with driving the narcotic but more so driving the human smuggling, the migrants,” Escalon said.
“And we’re seeing juveniles, we’re still seeing juveniles being more aggressive and wanting to fight with our personnel.”
Olivarez said Texas needs help.
“The federal government needs to help Border Patrol and provide them with more resources because right now they are being stretched thin,” Olivarez told KVEO.
“We’re the ones filling those gaps along the border because they are being taken away from the field and processing all the migrants that are coming across.”
Escalon said constant vigilance is essential.
“We’ve got to be out there every day, we have to be visible, they’ve got to see us in those areas of interest,” Escalon told KVEO.
“The airplanes, your helicopters, your boats that are in the water, that is a great deterrence, and having fencing, that is a great deterrence.”
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