By Mike Scruggs
Category: Mike Scruggs' Column

Texas Governor’s Operation Lone Star Strikes Back

Texas Governor Greg Abbott
Texas Governor Greg Abbott
Texas is the second largest U.S. state in both area and population and has long been a bulwark of conservative and constitutional resistance against growing socialist and cultural Marxist ideology and power in Washington.

The Biden Regime’s deliberate and massive open border crisis is aimed at destroying Texas and rebuilding it on the socialist, cultural Marxist model. The Federal Government is constitutionally responsible for immigration policy but under the new regime, it is fueling chaos rather than securing the border and assuring the economic welfare and public safety of the people of Texas. The Biden regime’s immigration policies are blatantly unethical and seriously violate the U.S. Constitution.  Biden’s actions do not fit any model of common sense. In fact, they violate every principle of honor and threaten the survival of Texas and other states. They cannot be tolerated by Texas or any other state.  On March 6, Texas Governor Greg Abbott and the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) launched Operation Lone Star, integrating the DPS and Texas National Guard to combat smuggling people and drugs into Texas.

In initiating this action, Governor Abbott stated:

“The crisis on our southern border continues to escalate because of Biden Administration policies that refuse to secure the border and invite illegal immigration. Texas supports legal immigration but will not be an accomplice to the open border policies that cause, rather than prevent, a humanitarian crisis in our state and endanger the lives of Texans. We will surge the resources and law enforcement personnel needed to confront the crisis.”

According to the Texas DPS, Operation Lone Star will send ground, air, marine, and tactical security assets to high-threat areas along the Texas border in order to stop Mexican drug cartels and smugglers from bringing drugs and illegal aliens into Texas.

It remains to be seen how much Texas must do to save itself from irresponsible Federal immigration actions by the Biden Administration.  Biden immigration policies do not match the survival goal that underlies all government responsibilities for public safety and national security. Texans cannot stand by and let Texas be destroyed by insane polices.  Continued mindless Federal provocations could severely endanger the spirit and fabric of national unity.  

Texas has been a stalwart national conservative leader for decades, but the demographics of Texas are changing.  The state’s population was estimated to be 29.4 million in July 2020, up nearly 17 percent from the 2010 census. Only about 41.2 percent of the population now describe themselves as non-Hispanic white.  Most of these are of British, Irish, or German ancestry, having settled in Texas coming from other Southern states.  About 40 percent are Hispanic of whatever race, and 30 percent are Spanish-speaking. African-Americans make up about 13 percent of the population. Asian-Americans are a fast-growing group making up at least 5 percent of the population. 

Texas is still considered part of the Bible Belt. A 2014 survey showed 77 percent adhere to Christianity in their religious beliefs. Fifty per cent of these are specifically Protestant, and 23 percent specifically Catholic. Evangelical Protestants are the largest single religious influence at 31 percent, which includes many Hispanics. Southern Baptists are the largest Protestant denomination but only make up 9 percent of the total population.  In my article, America’s Transformed Electorate, published on March 1, I pointed out that Texas’s foreign-born had increased from 14 percent to 25 percent of the population in the last 20 years, signaling a vulnerability to Democrat Party dominance in the future.  Virginia and Georgia are examples of Southern States rapidly made blue or purple by demographic change. North Carolina is also on the edge.  

Recent Texas-wide elections have certainly indicated Republican margins are shrinking. Trump is extremely popular with Texas evangelicals, but he won Texas by only 52 to 48 in 2020. There is some indication, however, that Texas Hispanics are becoming distressed over a Biden immigration policy, which will bring depressed wages and more drug traffic and crime to their communities. Mexican drug cartels, corruption, and gangs are becoming a more visible concern to Texas-born Hispanics, many of whom are now leaning more Republican.    

In my March 1 article, I stated the obvious. U.S. immigration policy has heavily favored the Democratic Party since 1965. The 1986 amnesty started a huge surge of Democrat voter growth, and the Obama Administration began a more deliberate policy of Democratic Party dominance by demographic change in 2009. Trump almost had this stopped by strengthening immigration control and border security and delivering tremendous prosperity to all Americans, despite strong resistance by the Democratic Party, and the corporate, media, and education establishments.

The Biden regime has now created a border crisis in Texas by promising amnesty and de facto implementation of open border policy. Thousands of illegal immigrants are pouring across the Texas border with Mexico, and the Border Patrol and ICE  have been ordered to welcome them and process them rather than stop them. They are simply helped on their way to destinations in Texas and across the United States. The War on Texas is essentially a war on America and especially Red States. The Border Patrol in the Rio Grande Valley Sector apprehended 90,000 illegals in FY 2020, but there have already been 108,000 caught and released by the end of February this year. According to Texas National Guard Adjutant General, Tracy Norris, over six percent of them were released even though they tested positive for Covid. About 25 percent of the immigrant refuges in Harlingen, Texas, have tested positive for Covid. Norris gave an alarming picture of the border crisis in the Rio Grande Valley Sector:

“We are on a scale where it is going to more than double or triple, or maybe quadruple or quintuple, just in the Rio Grande Valley Sector alone because of the new policies of the Biden Administration.”

Illegal alien crime has been a problem in Texas for some time. According to a recent Texas DPS report using U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) data, between June 1, 2011 and February 28, 2021, 229,000 illegal aliens were booked in Texas jails for 558,000 criminal offenses. The most common, nearly 71,000 crimes, involved drugs. Almost 65,000 were assault charges. There were 248,000 convictions, including 557 for murder, 3,499 for sexual assault, and 347 for kidnapping.   The wider the open door, the more crime there will be, so we can expect a considerable acceleration of illegal immigrant crime. Open borders are an enabling incentive for those with criminal intent.

The most serious crime threat comes from the Mexican drug cartels, which control much of the border area. According to Governor Abbott, “the cartels are quite literally being enriched. The Biden Administration is helping cartels make more money.” This is because border security assets are almost completely occupied with the huge numbers of immigrants, including unaccompanied children. The cartels also use immigrants to smuggle drugs and people into Texas and from there to other states. They are making much more money than formally on human smuggling. The price has risen from about $1,500 per person two years ago to as much as $9,000 each recently.

Of the six Mexican drug cartels supplying illegal drugs to the United States, two Mexican drug cartels are especially well entrenched on both the border and in Texas communities. The Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas Cartel have hubs in Dallas, Houston, and Laredo. These usually manage drug distribution and other crimes through 11 Mexican and Central American street gangs operating in Texas. One is actually a motorcycle gang called the Bandidos. According to the Drug Enforcement Agency, about 100,000 gang members are involved in these 11 gangs. The drug cartels are very powerful in northern Mexico and armed with high-firepower military equipment, including belt-fed, truck mounted machine guns.  It is not unreasonable to project that the increased profits and opportunities the Biden Administration has given the drug cartels in Texas and other states could result in drug cartel control of or unhealthy influences on many local governments. The potential for violence is, of course, extremely high.

Biden’s anti-fossil fuel policies in behalf of the Left’s thoughtless premature advancement of green energy and quixotic climate change fantasies are also a war against Texas and Texas energy workers.  

For Texas to survive Biden’s war against it, Governor Abbott and Texas State and local governments must stop the Biden-Obama catch and release policy. The people of Texas have an inalienable right to secure borders, public safety, and honest and coherent immigration policies that benefit Texas and the people of Texas rather than leftist Federal ideologues and special interests.  This may mean an enormous nation-shaking clash between Federal power and States Rights, but Texas must be resolute to survive. Her stand should be just as resolutely backed by other freedom states. Texas rights are the rights of all Americans. We must stand united against tyranny.

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