Texas could take migrants directly to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement centers for deportation, instead of transporting them to sanctuary cities, according to a New York Post exclusive.
Gov. Greg Abbott must still approve the proposal, which was submitted in connection with the existing transportation system used for the Operation Lone Star program. Beginning in April 2022, the Texas Division of Emergency Management arranged buses to transport migrants from Texas to shelter cities such as Washington, D.C., New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Denver and Los Angeles. By January this year, the program had transported more than 100,000 migrants to these cities.
Operation Lone Star, designed to deter migrants from entering the U.S. illegally, had led to more than 495,400 apprehensions and 38,300 criminal arrests as of January, more than 34,700 of which involved felonies. Police in Texas had also intercepted more than 453 million lethal doses of fentanyl, the governor’s office said.
The Texas government source, whose identity was withheld, told The Post about efforts to allow such transportation to take migrants directly to federal detention centers instead of sanctuary cities to speed up the deportation process.
“We will always be involved in border security as long as we are a border state,” the source said. “We’ve spent a lot of taxpayer money to achieve the level of deterrence that we have at the border, and we can’t just walk away.”
President-elect Donald Trump’s new “Border Czar,” Tom Homan, agrees with the shift, the source continued. The ICE agents would also reimburse the state government for the bus contract.
Migrants and asylum seekers are observed by security personnel as they prepare to board a bus after being detained by U.S. Border Patrol agents after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in Somerton, near the reservation boundaries of the Cocopah Indian Tribe, on May 11, 2023. had crossed.
Greg Abbott Meets Trump’s ‘Border Czar’
Homan and Governor Abbott met last week at the Texas-Mexico border to discuss the immigration crisis, where Homan vowed to carry out a “mass deportation” of undocumented immigrants.
Although Homan and Abbott did not speak directly about the future of the migrant buses, Homan told The Post that he is “watching[s] looking forward to talking about that.”
“We’re going to help them get this job done and secure Texas, and we’re going to work together. And [Abbott] doesn’t have to worry that this administration will sue him… to secure the Texas border,” he added.”
Read more: Who is Tom Homan? Trump calls former Border Patrol agent and ICE chief ‘border czar’
‘Border czar’: Trump appoints Tom Homan to oversee deportation policy and aviation security. Homan was a Border Patrol agent for 34 years and served in the first Trump administration as acting ICE director. He sparked controversy for strict immigration enforcement, including “zero tolerance” policies that separated families of undocumented immigrants.
Texas Land Commissioner Launches ‘Jocelyn Initiative’
During a series of meetings, Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham announced the launch of the “Jocelyn Initiative,” another program aimed at combating undocumented immigration.
The initiative is named after 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray, a Houston girl who authorities say was killed in June by two Venezuelan gang members who entered the U.S. illegally, according to The Texas Tribune. Nungaray’s mother and grandfather, Alexis and Jackie, attended Buckingham’s press conference.
“Our goal is to ensure that no other parent unfortunately has to experience what Alexis went through,” Buckingham said.
The news conference was held in the border town of La Casita-Garciasville, on the massive Starr County ranch that the Texas General Land Office recently purchased. Last week, Buckingham offered the property to newly elected President Donald Trump to build detention centers.
Earlier this month, during the heated race between Rep. Colin Allred, D-Dallas, and Sen. Ted Cruz for U.S. Senate, Alexis was used in a campaign ad that said Allred bears significant responsibility for the death of Houstonian Jocelyn because of his ” open border policy at the Texas-Mexico border.
In a similar ad in support of President-elect Trump, Alexis talked about her daughter’s experience, recalling seeing police cars after tracking her daughter’s phone location just two minutes away. In the ad, she stated that Jocelyn was found in a creek with all four limbs tied up and that she had been “strangled to death, left without pants.”
“The Jocelyn Initiative, in which we will find suitable land under my jurisdiction to lease for the construction of facilities for deportation of violent criminals,” Buckingham continued. “My office has identified a number of our properties and stands ready to make this happen on the first day of Trump’s presidency.”
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas may bus migrants to ICE centers instead of sanctuary cities
