On March 6, 2021, less than two months into President Biden’s term in office, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) announced that he and the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) had launched a new undertaking “to deny Mexican Cartels and other smugglers the ability to move drugs and people into Texas.”[1]
Abbott justified his project — called Operation Lone Star — by denouncing “Biden Administration policies that refuse to secure the border and invite illegal immigration.”[2] Yet, even as Texas rolled out this effort, the state was already strategically suing the federal government and forcing officials to maintain or reinstate Trump-era policies, dramatically limiting the new administration’s ability to implement significant changes (see our related paper on this effort).
Even so, over the last three-and-a-half years, Texas has spent more than$11 billion on Operation Lone Star, deploying thousands of state troopers and Texas National Guard members in support of the initiative.[3] Operation Lone Star has been highly controversial, drawing criticism from immigration policy experts, advocates, and even some state officials who worked to implement it, with detractors citing its steep price tag, draconian tactics, potential constitutional violations, and dubious effectiveness.[4]
In the summer of 2023, the Wall Street Journal wrote, “Texas has spent two years and billions of dollars on the most aggressive attempt by any state to take control over federal border security. There’s no indication it has worked.”[5] The article continued:
The area of the border most heavily targeted by Operation Lone Star has seen the most rapid increases in illegal border crossings in the state since the operation began. Thousands of arrests by state troopers under the program have been unrelated to border security, and instead netted U.S. citizens hundreds of miles from the border. Arrests of migrants trespassing on private property have generally not affected their immigration cases, and courts have found many of the arrests made in the first two years to be discriminatory and invalidated them.[6]
In more recent months, a shift in migration patterns has occurred, with large swathes of the Texas-Mexico border becoming less popular crossing points than other Border Patrol sectors in California and Arizona.[7] Abbott has attributed this decline to Operation Lone Star, although immigration experts have warned his view is likely reductive given the many transnational factors that affect where people cross.[8] Notably, around the same time as the dip in Texas border migration began, Mexico ramped up its in-country enforcement at the behest of the Biden administration.[9] For the federal government’s part, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials have said such changes in Mexican enforcement and cartel infighting are responsible for the shifting migration routes that have started to favor the U.S. Southwest and West over Texas.[10]
Regardless of its outcomes, Operation Lone Star remains one of Abbott’s signature policies and has become a visible challenge to federal supremacy over immigration enforcement. Many elements of Operation Lone Star have made headlines over the last three years, with several spawning legal challenges. This paper provides background on some of the most significant practices related to Operation Lone Star, unpacking its consequences for the federal government, Texas’s leadership, cities in the U.S. interior, Texas border communities, and migrants themselves.
a. Busing
On April 6, 2022, Abbott ordered the Texas Division of Emergency Management (TDEM) to start figuring out how to transport migrants from Texas to Washington, D.C.[11] “The thought was this: if Joe Biden and… Kamala Harris were not going to come to the border,” Abbott later said, “I was going to take the border to them.”[12] Soon, the Texas governor expanded his busing experiment to other Democratic-governed cities across the country. He sent busloads of migrants and asylum seekers to unfamiliar destinations with no real, official coordination with nonprofits or local governments on the ground, in what critics lambasted as “political theater.”[13]
Abbott has continued with his busing scheme for far longer than some advocates initially expected, with serious consequences. By late-April 2024, two years in, Texas had transported over 12,500 migrants to Washington, D.C., more than 43,400 to New York City, over 35,300 to Chicago, more than 3,400 to Philadelphia, over 18,500 to Denver, and more than 1,500 to Los Angeles.[14] These sudden arrivals en masse have posed acute challenges for cities that were already dealing with housing crises and lacked the infrastructure and expertise to handle large-scale resettlement immediately after migrants arrived.
Despite logistical and operational hurdles, many of these cities initially tried to welcome the migrants. But eventually, prominent state and local Democratic leaders in targeted jurisdictions began to change their tune as more and more buses unloaded. In September 2023, New York Mayor Eric Adams infamously asserted that the increase in arrivals would “destroy New York City.”[15] The following month, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul called the U.S.-Mexico border “too open right now” — a federal issue she said was causing headaches for her state.[16] And in June, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey sent officials to the southern border to make clear to migrants and those who serve them that her state’s shelters were full.[17] Alongside this harsh public messaging, many Democratic officials also begged the federal government for more funding and resources, even as they changed their own policies to increasingly winnow migrants’ access to shelter and other services.[18]
For Texas’s Republican leaders, the buses represented a direct commentary on the Biden administration’s border policies, with Abbott regularly blaming his perceived need for busing on the Democratic president.[19] Republican strategist Brendan Steinhauser described Abbott’s political intent when he said that because of the initiative, migrant arrivals are “now hitting the Democratic party in a Democratic-run city and creating a wedge within the Democratic party.”[20]
In many ways, Abbott’s plan has worked, drawing significant, adverse attention to the issue of migration. As local and state officials have pleaded for federal intervention, and after some leaders started using increasingly alarmist language around migration to their cities, a notable shift has occurred in public sentiment around migrants and asylum seekers.[21] While policy conversations move away from positive solutions and toward enforcement-only reforms, Abbott’s busing scheme has made a significant imprint on the U.S. immigration debate, by engendering chaos in the country’s interior and stoking tensions around noncitizen newcomers in localities governed by Democrats.
At the same time, although migrants riding these buses have done so voluntarily, the busing has led to negative circumstances for many people, who sometimes are dropped off in places where they end up sleeping in tents on the streets or face other adversity.[22] The buses themselves have also come under scrutiny for allegations of unsafe and inhumane conditions, including overflowing toilets.[23]
The Biden administration has expressed criticism and frustration around Abbott’s and other Republican governors’ efforts to send migrants to Democratic-led cities unannounced. “Instead of working with us on solutions, Republicans are playing politics with human beings, using them as props,” Biden said in September 2022. “What they’re doing is simply wrong. It’s un-American, it’s reckless.”[24]
By summer 2024, Abbott’s busing scheme was largely on pause, as irregular border crossings dropped precipitously and officials struggled to identify enough migrants willing to take buses to the targeted locations. Even so, Abbott has reiterated his mission to send more of his buses to Democratic strongholds in the country’s interior.[25] At the 2024 Republican National Convention, amid cheers from an audience holding “Mass Deportation Now” signs, Abbott said, “We have continued busing migrants to sanctuary cities across the entire country, and those buses will continue to roll until we finally secure our border.” [26]
b. Razor Wire Barriers
Operation Lone Star relies on purposefully menacing physical obstacles to deter migrants from crossing into the United States. Among these are miles of towering state-built steel barriers, making Texas “the first — and ONLY — state in U.S. history to build our own border wall,” according to Abbott.[27] Yet, what have become even more emblematic of the aggressive enforcement operation are the coils of concertina wire lining Texas riverbanks and inside the Rio Grande itself, blocking both migrants and Border Patrol agents from crossing to either side.
Texas officials have been placing this razor wire along the U.S.-Mexico border for much of Operation Lone Star, and by April 2024, the state had unspooled over 100 miles of it to try to keep migrants and asylum seekers out.[28] The sharp wire poses risks to people traversing the Rio Grande, giving rise to dangerous or even life-threatening situations. In a document dated June 26, 2023, obtained and reported by Hearst Newspapers, CBP officials warned that the razor wire was a hazard that increased the possibility of migrant drownings, and that a “high risk” of injury arose from razor wire that had been installed in the river, where it was not visible.[29]
In July 2023, a state trooper and medic in Eagle Pass, Texas — one of the primary enforcement locations for Operation Lone Star — sent an email to command staff raising similar concerns about what he had witnessed while on duty. Although he supported the operation, he warned that recent practices “stepped over a line” into inhumane treatment of vulnerable people. He shared the story of a 4-year-old girl who tried to cross the wire but was pushed back by Texas National Guard members. In the over-100-degree heat, the child soon fainted from exhaustion and remained unresponsive while he tried to treat her. On the same day, a father with a lacerated leg told the trooper that he sustained his injury while pulling his child out of a trap in the water — a barrel covered by wire. That night, the trooper medic found a 19-year-old woman caught in wire, doubled over in pain as she suffered a miscarriage.[30]
The email’s author also warned that the wire’s strategic placement was spurring some migrants to take more perilous routes to reach U.S. soil. He wrote about a 15-year-old boy who broke his right leg while crossing in an unsafe area, as well as a mother and child who died and a second child whose body was never found after they struggled to cross the Rio Grande. “With the casualty wire running for several miles along the river in areas where it is easier for people to cross,” he wrote, “[i]t forces people to cross in other areas that are deeper and not as safe for people carrying kids and bags.”[31]
Given that Texas’s land is roughly 95% private, placement of the wire often requires a private landowner’s consent.[32] But some locals who originally agreed to the wire’s installation have changed their minds after seeing its consequences. In Eagle Pass, Poncho Nevárez — a former state lawmaker — told reporters he was about to request that the Texas National Guard remove the wire from his property. Soon after it was placed, he remembered, he discovered a pregnant 17-year-old on his land, barefoot and crying while holding a small child.[33]
At the same time, reports have indicated that the wire has been making it harder for the Border Patrol to do its job, serving as a barrier not only to potential border crossers but also to the federal law enforcement officers tasked with policing the international boundary. The razor wire limits the latter’s freedom of movement, often blocking gates they use to rapidly get to the Rio Grande and keeping them from reaching stranded asylum seekers for hours or even days.[34] Facing these obstacles, Border Patrol agents started cutting through the wire with shears to reach people in danger and carry out other responsibilities.
In response, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the federal government for destruction of state property.[35] The Texas attorney general’s office was initially successful at procuring a temporary restraining order stopping Border Patrol from severing the wire except during emergency situations. But a federal judge later denied Texas’s motion for a preliminary injunction, giving Border Patrol agents the go-ahead to resume cutting the wire despite the judge’s strong rebuke of the Biden administration’s immigration policies.[36] The issue eventually wound up in front of the Supreme Court, which narrowly decided in a 5-4 vote that Border Patrol agents could legally cut the wire as the case proceeded.[37] Notably, the justices did not rule on the legality of Texas’s actions in placing the wire near international borders – it merely held that federal officials could remove it.
Since that decision, Texas officials have continued erecting razor wire along their international border. That outcome is to be expected, as “the actual ruling the Supreme Court handed down… doesn’t require Governor Abbott to do anything,” explained Stephen Vladeck, a legal scholar at the University of Texas School of Law. “What it does is it clears away the possible legal consequences if the federal government continues to cut or otherwise remove the concertina wire that Texas has placed along the border.”[38] Although Texas’s actions do not defy the Supreme Court’s decision, stopping short of a constitutional crisis (at least for the time being), they do position Border Patrol and Texas law enforcement in tension with one another.[39]
As of publication, the litigation remains ongoing.[40]
c. Floating Buoy Barriers
In July 2023, Texas officials installed a roughly 1,000-foot string of bright orange buoys in the Rio Grande between Eagle Pass, Texas, and Piedras Negras, Mexico. The floating barriers consist of round barrels about four feet in diameter that rotate independently of one another, so that if someone tried to climb atop them, the person would fall backwards into the water.[41] Some of the spheres bear cautionary messages for migrants in Spanish, such as “entrance is prohibited” or “no crossing.”[42] Between the buoys themselves are dangerous saw blades that can cut skin, while stainless steel nets floating below the buoys keep migrants from swimming underneath to reach the other side.[43]
The border buoys quickly garnered criticism for both humanitarian and diplomatic reasons. In August 2023, the body of a drowned migrant was found along the barrier, although Texas officials said the person had seemingly died upstream and then “floated into the buoys.”[44] Even so, Mexico’s president, U.S. lawmakers, and human rights advocates have expressed concerns that the obstacle is inhumane and may direct vulnerable migrants and asylum seekers to more dangerous crossing points, where they are more likely to face life-threatening conditions.[45]
Beyond humanitarian impacts, the buoy barrier poses serious questions about sovereignty and transnational borders, given that it sits within a river that both demarcates the international line between Mexico and the U.S. and is constantly flowing and shifting, as bodies of water do. In practice, that means that only part of the Rio Grande sits on U.S. territory, while the rest is in Mexico — and the water that delineates that boundary moves with its currents. When officials at the International Boundary and Water Commission surveyed the buoys’ locations in summer 2023, they found that about 79% of the string was actually in Mexico.[46] Texas officials later moved the buoys closer to the U.S. side of the border out of what Abbott called “an abundance of caution.”[47]
For its part, the Mexican government has decried the buoys, calling them “a violation of our sovereignty” that undermines the collaborative relationship between Mexico and the U.S.[48] After the U.S. Department of Justice sued Texas over the floating barriers, Hillary Quam, a State Department official, testified that the buoys had spurred Mexico to express concerns “at the highest diplomatic levels,” in part because the country didn’t “want to be seen as a lesser partner to the United States.”[49] The federal government also argued that the buoys were obstructing a U.S. waterway in violation of the Rivers and Harbors Act and breaching a 1970 treaty, while U.S. officials from the Border Patrol and the Coast Guard warned of potentially negative consequences for their operations and general safety because of the barrier.[50]
Texas, in turn, argued that it was facing a migrant “invasion” to try to justify its buoys as self-defense.[51] In response, the federal district judge overseeing the case in Austin wrote, “Under this logic, once Texas decides, in its sole discretion, that it has been invaded, it is subject to no oversight of its ‘chosen means of waging war.’ Such a claim is breathtaking.” On September 6, 2023, the judge ordered Texas to move the buoys and their related materials to the riverbank on the Texas side.[52] “Governor Abbott announced that he was not ‘asking for permission’ for Operation Lone Star, the anti-immigration program under which Texas constructed the floating barrier,” the decision read. “Unfortunately for Texas, permission is exactly what federal law requires before installing obstructions in the nation’s navigable waters.”[53]
Yet, that ruling was quickly paused by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, which allowed Texas to keep its controversial barrier in the river as the case proceeded.[54] The appeals court later affirmed the lower court’s decision that the buoys should be removed, but then Paxton asked for and was eventually granted an en banc rehearing by all the judges of the Fifth Circuit.[55] And, on July 30, 2024, the appeals court ruled that “the district court abused its discretion by granting the United States a preliminary injunction,” largely because the judges did not believe that the federal government would be able to prove the buoys had been installed in a navigable stretch of the river.[56]
At the same time, Circuit Judge James C. Ho separately argued that federal courts generally “lack jurisdiction to hear this case” given Abbott’s “good faith invocation” of a constitutional article giving states the right to engage in war when “invaded,” in this case purportedly by migrants seeking safety and opportunity.[57] Ho’s intervention proved especially controversial among legal experts, and libertarian law professor Ilya Somin wrote, “This theory has breathtakingly awful implications. It implies a state governor can declare the existence of an ‘invasion’ virtually any time he or she wants, and then ‘engage in war’ in response—even without authorization from Congress.”[58]
The case has now returned to the district court for further proceedings, even as the Fifth Circuit’s majority has instructed the presiding district judge to remain consistent with their July opinion.[59] All the while, Abbott has said he plans to invest in more of the buoys for the Rio Grande, but not before “a final decision from the court that has to enforce what the Fifth Circuit already told them to enforce.”[60]
d. Enforcement of Trespassing Offenses
Under Operation Lone Star, Texas has ramped up enforcement of trespassing offenses to criminalize the unlawful presence of migrants crossing through private land, amounting to a de facto alternative immigration enforcement system through existing state laws. Given the expanse of Texas’s private property, which comprises much of the land along the U.S.-Mexico border (and in the state generally), Texas has arrested and criminally charged with trespassing migrants and asylum seekers trying to reach U.S. soil.
Initially, state officials were told to focus on arresting single men for these trespassing offenses, not women or families.[61] But the policy soon backfired when attorneys defending migrants successfully argued that this amounted to sex discrimination by improperly singling out men for arrest under Operation Lone Star, which led judges to throw out many cases. Texas responded by also arresting single women for trespassing offenses.[62] Likewise, the state Department of Public Safety soon admitted to expanding the enforcement policy to target some families, arresting and charging migrant fathers and effectively separating them from their wives and children. Some of the fathers “were told they would never see their wife and child again,” alleged an attorney for Operation Lone Star defendants.[63]
Those arrested under Operation Lone Star are processed in soft-sided tents, often taken to former state prisons that have been converted for this purpose, and scheduled for initial state criminal hearings conducted by retired state judges (usually over Zoom). Under this new criminal justice scheme, described by Human Rights Watch as “a separate criminal legal system,” state criminal trespassing charges have effectively supplanted federal charges against migrants for improper entry and/or re-entry into the U.S. as a way to criminalize irregular migration.[64] And, although the state does not currently have the ability to deport recent border crossers (a capacity state legislators have tried to create, but that has been tied up in litigation), its officials can turn over released migrants to federal custody, which may in turn lead to their removal.
e. Shelby Park
Yet, in Eagle Pass — again, one of Texas’s focal points for Operation Lone Star — officials encountered an obstacle to arresting migrants for trespassing on private property.[65] Many migrants and asylum seekers were crossing through public land, specifically through a popular communal gathering area called Shelby Park.
To get around this limitation, Eagle Pass Mayor Rolando Salinas Jr. signed several iterations of a criminal trespass affidavit, which eventually limited access to Shelby Park for “those who would enter directly from the riverbanks… or who did not enter the property from designated entry points.”[66] This action purportedly permitted the Texas Department of Public Safety to enforce the criminal trespass statute in the park, even though it was public.
Then, on the evening of January 10, the Texas Military Department — the parent department over the Texas Army and Air National Guards — seized control of roughly 2.5 miles of land along the Rio Grande, including Shelby Park.[67] Texas placed barriers and deployed armed soldiers on the land, restricting Border Patrol’s access to the area even during emergencies.
As of May 2024, amid ongoing tensions between Texas and the federal government, access to the park remained limited.[68]The Texas Military Department continued to insist that both the local community and the media had access, but the area was still gated and patrolled. Criminal trespass was enforced via yet another affidavit — this time signed by the Major of the Texas Department of Public Safety from the South Texas region. [69] Entry was limited to Eagle Pass residents who brought identification proving they lived nearby, and there were reports of residents and journalists either facing threats of arrest or being turned away from the park.
In mid-August 2024, Abbott ordered the installation of more razor wire in the Shelby Park area, “to hold the line and bolster our border security efforts to protect Texans — and Americans — from the Biden-Harris border crisis.”[70] Six miles away, Texas had opened a new Forward Operating Base on an 80-acre plot to host as many as 1,800 Texas National Guard soldiers involved in Operation Lone Star, with the possibility to expand further if necessary.[71] The facility, which could reportedly cost the state more than $400 million, suggests Abbott’s intention to continue pursuing aggressive immigration-related efforts in Eagle Pass and beyond long-term.[72] The first soldiers already moved in during late-May 2024. “This base camp will provide the type of housing and standards of living that both improve the quality of life for the men and women in uniform securing our border and allow Texas to have a permanent presence on the southern border,” Abbott said.[73]
f. Vehicular Chases
In counties affected by Operation Lone Star, residents have been disproportionately subjected to vehicular pursuits, many of which have had serious or even lethal consequences. These high-speed chases are in many ways a feature and not a bug of Operation Lone Star, which — by virtue of its mission — encourages traffic stops for low-level violations in order to identify whether a driver is smuggling migrants.[74]
According to Human Rights Watch, between the inception of Operation Lone Star and July 2023, at least 74 people died and another 189 sustained injuries during chases by local law enforcement and/or DPS in these counties.[75] Some of the victims were innocent bystanders, including a 7-year-old girl.
The vehicular pursuits have also caused damage to Texans’ property and emotional trauma to bystanders and victims, with little regard for the cost or distress that such incidents incur. When McAllen resident Ruben Villegas died after crashing into local business owner Norma Saldaña’s fence, she “had to take some holy water and sprinkle it over the ground” because there was “so much blood everywhere.” Human Rights Watch reported that the agencies involved in the chase did not compensate her for the harm that the tragedy produced.[76]
g. Reinforcing Operation Lone Star Through State Laws
During Texas’s regular legislative session in 2023, state officials passed new laws that allowed the Texas military to use surveillance drones as part of Operation Lone Star, let certain Border Patrol agents arrest or search people for state felonies, and paid agricultural landowners for property damage related to border crime. Enacted legislation also allowed the governor to pursue an interstate compact with other states to address border security, established a new training program around border operations for local peace officers, and designated Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.
After the conclusion of that regular legislative session in May 2023, Gov. Abbott’s office issued a press release touting the “sweeping package of border security legislation” that state lawmakers had passed.[77] “Texas has pushed back against the swell of migrants and held the line to keep people out of Texas — but there’s more that needs to be done,” said Abbott.
And so the state legislature did more. Abbott called multiple special legislative sessions, where he held the authority to set the agendas, and the result was three immigration- and border-related bills signed into law that were meant to further bolster Operation Lone Star. Among the legislation was Senate Bill 3, which appropriates $1.54 billion, in part for state grants to support local governments and law enforcement facing funding pressures as they try to implement new state-based immigration penalties. It also pays for “the construction, operation, and maintenance of border barrier infrastructure,” potentially including more wall.[78]
Given that there were multiple special legislative sessions last year, the other two pieces of legislation are both named Senate Bill 4, although they have vastly different provisions and possible consequences. One imposes a 10-year mandatory minimum for the smuggling of persons and elevates operating a “stash house” — where unauthorized immigrants are “stashed” and hidden from law enforcement — from a misdemeanor to a felony.[79] The other directly challenges the federal government’s authority over immigration enforcement by imposing state-level criminal penalties for entering Texas from abroad without authorization and creating a de facto state deportation apparatus.[80] The latter has largely been blocked from taking effect long-term for the time being, amid ongoing litigation.
Conclusion
Through Operation Lone Star, Abbott has deployed every tool in Texas’s toolbox to establish a hardline state immigration enforcement system at odds with federal supremacy over immigration. He has also strategically used resources to put pressure on and cause tension in localities governed by Democratic mayors and governors, dividing the Democratic Party even in large cities and more left-leaning states, where newcomers have historically been welcome. And, when he has needed more funding or authority to conduct his operation, he has swiftly procured it through an often-willing state legislature.
Whether Operation Lone Star has been effective in deterring irregular migration remains an open debate. Whether it has been successful as a political project cannot be denied. Through his operation, Abbott has altered the conversation around migrants and asylum seekers not only in Texas, but across the U.S., moving the needle toward restrictionism on immigration and border policy. The result is a nation far less open and welcoming to the immigrants who have always made it great, with serious, real-time consequences for people fleeing violence and persecution today.
[1] “Governor Abbott, DPS Launch ‘Operation Lone Star’ to Address Crisis at Southern Border,” Office of the Governor | Greg Abbott, March 6, 2021, https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/governor-abbott-dps-launch-operation-lone-star-to-address-crisis-at-southern-border.
[2] Office of the Governor, “Governor Abbott, DPS Launch.”
[3] Alejandro Serrano and Yuriko Schumacher, “Migrant Apprehensions Are Down at the Texas Border. Have State Policies Had an Impact?” The Texas Tribune, April 22, 2024, https://www.texastribune.org/2024/04/22/texas-border-migrant-apprehensions-abbott-operation-lone-star/.
[4] Serrano and Schumacher, “Migrant Apprehensions Are Down;” “US: End Texas Assault on Migrants; Cut Funds,” Human Rights Watch, July 11, 2022, https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/07/11/us-end-texas-assault-migrants-cut-funds; Lillian Perlmutter, “The Cruel Chaos of Greg Abbott’s Border Battle,” The New Republic, February 26, 2024, https://newrepublic.com/article/178809/border-prevention-deterrence-abbott-texas.
[5] Findell, “Texas Spent Billions.”
[6] Findell, “Texas Spent Billions.”
[7] Serrano and Schumacher, “Migrant Apprehensions Are Down.”
[8] “Gov. Greg Abbott on Border Crisis, Biden and SB 4,” YouTube, April 14, 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbARIsDnsE4.
[9] Lauren Villagran, “The Real Migrant Bus King of North America Isn’t the Texas Governor. It’s Mexico’s President,” USA Today, April 28, 2024, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/04/28/migrant-bus-operation-in-mexico/73438134007/.
[10] Nick Miroff, “A Quieter Border Eases Pressure on Biden, with a Hand from Mexico,” The Washington Post, April 30, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2024/04/30/united-states-mexico-border-surge-biden/.
[11] Greg Abbott, “Letter to W. Nim Kidd,” April 6, 2022, https://gov.texas.gov/uploads/files/press/O-KiddW.Nim202204062216_.pdf.
[12] YouTube, “Gov. Greg Abbott.”
[13] A Martínez et al., “GOP Governors Sent Buses of Migrants to D.C. and NYC – with No Plan for What’s Next,” NPR, August 6, 2022, https://www.npr.org/2022/08/05/1115479280/migration-border-greg-abbott-texas-bus-dc-nyc-mayors.
[14] “Operation Lone Star Continues Construction for Forward Operating Base,” Office of the Governor, April 26, 2024, https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/texas-forward-operating-base-construction-continues.
[15] Emma G. Fitzsimmons, “In Escalation, Adams Says Migrant Crisis ‘Will Destroy New York City,’” The New York Times, September 7, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/07/nyregion/adams-migrants-destroy-nyc.html#:~:text=2.7k-,In%20Escalation%2C%20Adams%20Says%20Migrant%20Crisis%20’Will%20Destroy%20New%20York,his%20push%20for%20federal%20help
[16] “Transcript: New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on ‘Face the Nation,’ Oct. 1, 2023,” CBS News, October 1, 2023, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kathy-hochul-new-york-governor-face-the-nation-transcript-10-01-2023/.
[17] Walter Wuthmann and Simón Rios, “Gov. Healey Sends Delegation to Southern Border to Spread Message That Mass. Shelters Are Full,” WBUR News, June 25, 2024, https://www.wbur.org/news/2024/06/25/healey-texas-delegation-massachusetts-family-emergency-shelter-system.
[18] Muzaffar Chishti and Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh Muzaffar Chishti and Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh, “After Crisis of Unprecedented Migrant Arrivals, U.S. Cities Settle into New Normal,” migrationpolicy.org, August 1, 2024, https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/us-cities-innovations-integrate-arrivals.
[19] “Governor Abbott Deploys More Buses to Border amid Migrant Surge,” Office of the Governor | Greg Abbott, September 22, 2023, https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/governor-abbott-deploys-more-buses-to-border-amid-migrant-surge.
[20] Natasha Korecki, “How Texas Gov. Greg Abbott Divided Democrats on Immigration With Migrant Busing,” NBCNews.com, December 17, 2023, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/texas-gov-greg-abbott-divided-democrats-immigration-migrant-busing-rcna128815.
[21] Fitzsimmons, “In Escalation, Adams Says”; “82% of Nyers: Recent Influx of Migrants Is Serious Problem (54% Very Serious); Say Migrants Resettling in NY over Last 20 Years Has Been ‘Burden,’ 46%, Not ‘Benefit,’ 32%, to NYS,” Siena College Research Institute, August 22, 2023, https://scri.siena.edu/2023/08/22/82-of-nyers-recent-influx-of-migrants-is-serious-problem-54-very-serious-say-migrants-resettling-in-ny-over-last-20-years-has-been-burden-46-not-benefit-32/; Russell Contreras, “Exclusive Poll: Americans Are Critical of Today’s Immigrants,” Axios, April 30, 2024, https://www.axios.com/2024/04/30/immigration-migrants-border-crossings-complaints.
[22] Carlos Barria et al., “The Toll on Migrants of a Free Bus North from the Border,” Reuters, January 11, 2024, https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/migration-usa-bus/.
[23] Nicco Quinones, Ashley Schwartz-Lavares, and Allie Weintraub, “Migrant Bus Conditions ‘disgusting and Inhuman,’ Says Former Veteran Who Escorted Convoys,” ABC News, October 24, 2023, https://abcnews.go.com/US/migrant-bus-conditions-disgusting-inhuman-former-vet-escorted/story?id=104038204.
[24] Kate Sullivan and Sam Fossum, “Biden Says Republicans Are ‘playing Politics with Human Beings’ after Desantis and Abbott Send Migrants to Martha’s Vineyard and DC,” CNN, September 15, 2022, https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/15/politics/white-house-republican-governors-migrants/index.html.
[25] Laura Strickler and Didi Martinez, “Texas Gov. Greg Abbott Vows to Keep Busing Migrants North. One Problem: Not Enough Migrants.,” NBCNews.com, August 14, 2024, https://www.nbcnews.com/investigations/texas-gov-greg-abbott-vows-keep-busing-migrants-north-one-problem-not-rcna166412.
[26] “Texas Governor Abbott Says Buses of Migrants Will Keep Rolling,” YouTube, July 17, 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJ0SL8wneQA.
[27] Justin Miller, “Abbott’s Billion-Dollar Barrier,” The Texas Observer, July 17, 2023, https://www.texasobserver.org/abbotts-billion-dollar-barrier/; Greg Abbott, “Texas Is the First – and Only – State in U.S. History to Build Our Own Border Wall. PIC.TWITTER.COM/5O4PWBW2JB,” Twitter, October 18, 2023, https://twitter.com/GregAbbott_TX/status/1714730944999874831.
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