As President-elect Truimp plans border restrictions and deportations that formed the bedrock of his election victory, the state that has pioneered extreme immigration crackdowns is reaching out to lend a hand. Texas leaders have offered 1,400 acres of land on the border to the federal government for construction of deportation facilities. Incoming Trump administration border czar Tom Homan joined Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in two Texas border cities, where he learned about the state’s border operation and visited its National Guard soldiers and state troopers. The alliance comes as Abbott has used his signature policy, Operation Lone Star, to challenge federal authority over immigration and push militarization of the border to new levels. The state has spent more than $11 billion to deploy thousands of National Guard and state troopers to border towns, erect barriers and create a system to jail migrants on low-level misdemeanor charges. The effort has had little effect on migration amid charges of civil-rights abuses, but it has become a system that a Trump administration could use, reports the Wall Street Journal. "This is a model we can take across the country,” Homan told troops last week.
Members of the National Guard have been deployed to the U.S.-Mexico border for decades, on federal orders under Republican and Democratic presidents and on state orders from governors. They don’t have authority to enforce immigration law, so have typically supported Border Patrol by acting as extra eyes and ears. Under Lone Star, Texas has shifted such deployments from short-term to a permanent border fixture. The state has ordered soldiers to report for a year or longer and built a permanent base near the Rio Grande. Immigration experts expect Trump to call up the Guard, perhaps with some sort of authority to detain people. Ron Vitiello, acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement during Trump’s previous term, said he could see the incoming administration making use of border barriers that the Biden administration has fought states over, including Texas river buoys and a shipping-container wall in Arizona. Trump plans to declare a national emergency to carry out his plans. Such a declaration would be similar to a state of disaster in place since 2021 in Texas, where localities have been financially rewarded for participating in such efforts. The Biden administration has sued Texas over elements of Operation Lone Star, including the buoys and a state law allowing local authorities to order deportations.
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