By Kimberly James; WBAP and KLIF News, Dallas, Texas.
AUSTIN – (WBAP/KLILF) – Furthering a military-style approach to guarding the Texas border with Mexico, Texas Governor Greg Abbott announces he intends to build an 80-acre military base camp near Eagle Pass. The Governor calls the planned base “Forward Operating Base Eagle”. It will be built to most comfortably provide a base for 1,800 Texas National Guard and other “Texas Military” poised to be dispatched or dispatched with orders at the Texas-Mexico border, but can, the Governor said, expand to provide for 2,300; building an estimated 300 rooms with personnel beds at a time through completion.
The Governor has also announced intent to continue to install razor wire on top of rail cars blocking the Texas side of the Rio Grande River in an effort to keep migrants from crossing into the Lone Star State. On his orders, the “Texas Military” recently took over the approximate 50-acre Shelby Park in Eagle Pass, blocking Border Patrol agents from accessing it as they had been to process migrants, and aid migrants in distress in the river. The blocking of access to federal agents at the border had it’s first test when Border Patrol agents sought entry to the fenced-off city park in apparent effort to aid a migrant woman and child reported struggling in the water. The Border Patrol agents were advised they could not enter. Later, a woman and two children were found drowned in the Rio Grande near that area.
These efforts are among several the Texas Governor has volleyed challenging federal-only oversight of all things immigration in the United States as the Justice Department winds it’s way through courts challenging the Texas moves. On March the 5th, Senate Bill 4 takes effect. It would allow any Texas police officer to arrest anyone suspected of illegal entry into the country, and state judges to order deportations. This, despite no training in issues of credible fear and more, as federal law allows when a non-citizen attempts to stay in the U.S. through an asylum claim once credibility of that fear and other admitting issues are established.
Neither the Governor, nor his office, will state how much this latest “military base” project will cost taxpayers.
Abbott has sent National Guard troops and state troopers to different areas of the 1,200 mile long Texas border with Mexico to varying areas since 2021, when he launched “Operation Lone Star” to reporters. Some 3,000 in total are now deployed along the state and Mexico border, when they’ve helped to install the razor wire and other physical blocks to migrants along the Rio Grande. The Texas Tribune reports one in five troops have expressed problems with shortages of needed equipment, including medical gear, plates for bullet-proof vests, and issues with their pay – paid too little, not at all, or being paid late.
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