Gov. Greg Abbott has claimed that his $11 billion Operation Lone Star has decreased illegal immigration, however, democratic border states with no additional measures have also driven down crossings.
“Under Operation Lone Star, illegal immigration has decreased in Texas by 85%,” Abbott wrote in a tweet last month, with a picture of a wall and state troopers. However, illegal immigration in Arizona has also fallen 84% since December, according to federal data reviewed by the Houston Chronicle.
According to the report, since December, crossings have decreased 86% in Texas, 84% in Arizona, and 55% in California. Both California and Arizona have Democratic Governors and no $11 billion border initiative.
Abbott launched his Operation Lone Star in 2021, arguing it would fill the gaps left by the Biden administration.
“Until President Biden and Border Czar Harris step up and do their jobs to secure the border, Texas will continue utilizing every tool and strategy to respond to the Biden-Harris border crisis,” Abbott spokesman Andrew Mahaleris said in a statement.
Most researchers and experts agree that Abbott has done little to stop migration. For example, the biggest declines came in January, when Mexico implemented new strategies to disencourage migration and in June, when Biden issued an executive order that shut off asylum processing.
Mexico suspended a program granting humanitarian visas for asylum seekers traveling to the U.S. border and deployed buses to relocate migrants from the border to the country’s south.
Conservatives have acknowledged that the decrease of illegal immigration is mainly because of Mexico’s and Biden’s actions.
“I attribute far more of the slowdown to this Mexico deal than to the Texas fortifications, even though the Texas fortifications work OK for managing very slow and sporadic traffic,” Todd Bensman, a fellow at the conservative Center for Immigration Studies told the Chronicle.
He noted that even with Texas razor wire, the wall being constructed and buoys in the Rio Grande river, crossings were still setting records until January.
“The objective videoed truth is that those fortifications had been completely overrun for months, right up until that Mexico deal was cut,” he said.
Some Republicans in the Texas legislature have begun to raise concerns over the expensive construction of a $20 billion wall that would likely not stop immigration.
“I am, too, concerned that we’re spending a whole lot of money to give the appearance of doing something rather than taking the problem on to actually solve it, and until we do that, I don’t expect to see much happen,” state Sen. Bob Hall said.
