Texas National Guard members taking part in Operation Lone Star in Eagle Pass in 2024.
The New York Post reported earlier this month that DHS is flying illegal migrants apprehended in San Diego to Texas for detention and removal because the department lacks holding space in California, while apparently there’s plenty of it along the Rio Grande in sectors that have seen major declines in illegal entrants. If you want to know how well the Texas state government’s “Operation Lone Star” is working, here’s your proof. Apparently deterring illegal migrants—which the state of Texas has been doing—works. Who knew?
Operation Lone Star. Almost immediately after President Biden’s inauguration, the number of illegal migrants apprehended by Border Patrol agents at the Southwest border began to surge: from fewer than 78,500 in January 2021 to more than 173,000 two months later.
That increase taxed not only agents’ ability to round up those entrants, but also the resources needed to transport, process, care for, and increasing release them. That left parts of the border unsecured while agents were “off the line”, otherwise engaged in those activities.
To fill the void, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) launched Operation Lone Star in March 2021. Under the nascent stages of that plan, state troopers and National Guard troops from all over the state were sent south to nab illegal entrants and hold them until Border Patrol could respond—and to arrest any drug mules and other criminals they came across on state charges.
As my colleague Todd Bensman explained shortly thereafter, from the outset that operation “doubled the state’s law enforcement presence in” the easternmost Border Patrol sector, Rio Grande Valley (RGV). The operation expanded thereafter all the way west, to El Paso.
Lone Star ramped up from there. As Biden “paused” (read: “halted”) new border infrastructure within hours of taking office, Texas scrounged up fence panels and started erecting fencing in high-traffic areas near Rio Grande City, in the RGV.
Then, in the weeks prior to the end of Title 42 in early May 2023, Texas placed miles of concertina wire (c-wire) along the banks of the Rio Grande to deter cross-border traffic in the unpredictable river, backed by rows of Humvees and squad cars.
Next, the state—under the auspices of Lone Star—erected a floating barrier of buoys in the middle of the river separating Piedras Negras, Mexico and Eagle Pass, in Maverick County.
Cases and Controversies. The purpose of these actions—the troops, the troopers, the wall, the c-wire, the buoys—was to deter migrants from entering the United States. That put Texas at odds with the administration.
The Biden/Harris administration, in a break from every previous one, abandoned deterrence as a border strategy in favor of allowing every foreign national who could make it here to apply for asylum. Nearly all those apprehended were released to live and work here for the years it would take for their cases to be heard, flouting congressional border detention mandates.
The conflict between these two border strategies—Texas’s border deterrence versus the administration’s catch-and-release regime—came to a head on the banks of the Rio Grande in Maverick County.
Last September (for reasons still unclear), DHS began cutting and removing sections of the c-wire barrier there to allow migrants to cross illegally into the United States. That prompted the state to go to federal district court to stop the destruction of its property.
The district judge hearing the matter paused that c-wire damage in October, but later denied the state’s request for a preliminary injunction, finding the federal government had not waived its “sovereign immunity” from being sued for the common-law torts claims Texas asserted.
So, Texas turned to the Fifth Circuit, which in December granted Texas a stay blocking DHS from tearing up any more of the barriers. In its order, the circuit court noted: “The [c-wire] serves as a ‘deterrent—an effective one at that,’ causing illegal crossings to drop precipitously” (emphasis added).
Not to be deterred itself, Biden’s DOJ ran to the Supreme Court, launching a flurry of conflicting claims between the administration and the state about who was doing what along the river as Texas seized a city park in Eagle Pass and began to reinforce it.
Ultimately, the justices (in a 5-3 vote) ruled in the administration’s favor in late January, but by that time it was a moot point: The spat was a PR disaster for a White House contending it was doing all it could to stem the flow, even as Border Patrol agents set a new monthly record in December, apprehending nearly 250,000 illegal migrants.
The c-wire’s been unmolested ever since.
If possible, the buoy brouhaha was even more ridiculous, with Biden’s DOJ going to district court in the late summer to argue the Rivers and Harbors Appropriation Act of 1899 required the state to remove the floating barrier.
A federal district court judge concurred with the administration’s arguments in September, ordering the state to pull the barrier ashore, but again a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit (two of whom had been appointed by Democratic presidents) stepped in shortly thereafter and said it could temporarily stay.
In December, however, that panel ordered the buoys removed, a decision vacated in January after the full Fifth Circuit acceded to Texas’ request to consider the matter en banc.
The issue of whether the migrant surge is an “invasion” has now worked its way into the circuit-court case (as has the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in the still-ongoing matter before the district court), setting up potential new headaches for the administration as the November elections loom.
The Numbers. The effectiveness of Lone Star may undermine its invasion claims, however, which brings me to Border Patrol’s apprehension numbers.
That component operates nine sectors along the 1,954-mile Southwest border, five (RGV, Laredo, Del Rio, Big Bend, and El Paso sectors—the last of which also covers the small New Mexico portion of the border) along the border separating Texas from Mexico, and four (Tucson, Yuma, El Centro, and San Diego sectors) on the remaining 700 miles in Arizona and California.
Of the roughly 1.66 million Border Patrol Southwest border apprehensions in FY 2021, more than 1.15 million were in the Texas sectors, 69.4 percent of the total.
That makes sense, because the Texas part of the U.S. side border is much closer to the Central American countries from which the majority of those migrants came. It was only logical smugglers would take the shortest route.
Of the 4.25 million-plus Southwest border apprehensions in FY 2022 and 2023, however, just over 2.61 million were in the Texas sectors, 61.4 percent.
Absent Lone Star, that decline would be inexplicable, but not so much as what has happened in the first nine months of FY 2024: the migrant flow has shifted west, away from Texas and far away from Mexico’s own southern border.
Thus far in the current fiscal year (through the end of June), just over 1.362 million illegal migrants have been apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico line, and nearly 57 percent of them (more than 772,391 migrants) were caught in the Tucson, Yuma, El Centro, and San Diego sectors.
Tucson agents have already made nearly 15 percent more apprehensions in FY 2024 than they did in all of FY 2023 (and 70 percent more than in FY 2022), while the Border Patrol in San Diego has seen a 21.6 percent spike in apprehensions compared to last year (and a 60 percent increase compared to FY 2022).
Were it not for big declines in the adjacent Yuma and El Centro sectors (for reasons unique to each), the disparities between the Texas and “other than Texas” sectors would be even more marked. Notably, April was the first month in two decades that San Diego sector led all others in apprehensions.
“Texas Officials Rip Biden”. Which brings me back to the New York Post article, headlined “Texas officials rip Biden for flying as many as 600 migrants a week to Lone Star State: ‘It’s offensive’”.
Apparently, for the low cost of $80,000 per flight in taxpayer cash, DHS is flying four planeloads of 150 migrants each weekly from southern California to the RGV and Laredo.
Why is it flying those migrants? The article explains that San Diego sector “migrant holding facilities remain over their operational capacities”, and there’s room in Texas.
So, what happens once those migrants land? According to the Post:
When the migrants are flown, they’re processed by border agents for removal, but if they have a credible fear or have some other possible exemption to Biden’s latest border rule, they’re typically handed over to ICE, sources said.
If ICE doesn’t have space, which it often doesn’t, they’ll release the migrants.
Apparently, ICE cut loose more than 400 of the migrants into the RGV in the first month the flight plan was in effect, which makes sense: If you’re going to pay a smuggler thousands of dollars to get into the country, the smuggler’s going to tell you what to say so you can stay to pass credible fear.
A Combination of Factors—But Only One Will Stick. Expect more migrants—and releases—as smugglers find and exploit loopholes in the administration’s early June “Proclamation on Securing the Border”, which DHS is crediting for the decline.
DHS claims that proclamation makes it harder for illegal migrants to claim asylum, which is true to a degree, but no more so than a similar administration effort last May that smugglers quickly found their way around.
What’s curious is that neither DHS nor the White House mentions a much bigger success: convincing the Mexican government to unleash its forces to impede “other than Mexican” (OTM) migrants from passing through its territory.
As Bensman has reported, Mexico City “deployed more than 32,150 regular Army troops in January for something called the ‘Migration Plan on the northern and southern border’”.
Tens of thousands were rounded up in the north of the country and shipped south, where: “They were all expected to go home or stay put alongside those continuing to enter from Guatemala”. Mexican federal roadblocks slowed migrants from returning to the U.S. border and newcomers making the trip.
The administration hasn’t shared many details of what you’d expect it would laud as a diplomatic victory, likely because it’s spent the past three years telling Americans that all illegal migrants are “asylum seekers”. News that the Mexican government is deterring migrants in its stead would likely alienate the White House’s pro-immigrant base.
Don’t get your hopes up, however. If history is any guide, a mix of reconnaissance, guile, and bribery will soon allow the smugglers to resume their illicit business as usual, notwithstanding Mexico’s best efforts.
For now, some combination of uncertainty about the new proclamation regime plus the Mexican migrant crackdown have helped slow the border surge, albeit temporarily. Smugglers are going to smuggle, and they’ll find a way to do so, assuming the administration keeps releasing migrants.
Those two factors, however, don’t explain the migrant shift away from the shorter journey to the U.S. border in Texas to the longer route through Arizona and California. Lone Star does.
Deterrence Works. In its December order barring DHS from cutting Texas’ c-wire barriers, the Fifth Circuit explained:
To guard the “vast stretches of land between” those points [legal ports of entry along the southwest border], Congress created the Border Patrol, whose objective is to “deter illegal entry into the United States.”
Deterrence may be Border Patrol’s objective, but the administration won’t let agents use it. Instead, the White House has contracted that job out to the Mexican government, while Texas has volunteered—against the administration’s desires—to do the job itself. Operation Lone Star works, because deterring illegal migrants is the best border strategy. Who knew?