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As a standoff between Texas and the White House intensifies over a section of land along the border near Eagle Pass, tensions over immigration enforcement have spread throughout the state, including to Houston-area counties.
Montgomery County, a county north of Houston with a population of about 670,000, signed a Jan. 23 resolution that calls illegal border crossings an “invasion,” becoming the latest county to endorse Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security initiative Operation Lone Star.
Operation Lone Star - by the numbers
2021
When Operation Lone Star was launched by Gov. Greg Abbott.
58
Counties included in Abbott's Operation Lone Star initiative, which attempts to “combat the smuggling of people and drugs into Texas.”
$10 billion
How much Operation Lone Star costs Texas.
488,000
Immigrants apprehended under Operation Lone Star.
37,300
Criminal arrests under Operation Lone Star.
92,000
Migrants bused to New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and other cities under Operation Lone Star since 2022.
Texas and the Biden administration have been in an ongoing dispute over border security, which hinges on the issue of whether Texas has the authority to enforce immigration, a task that the Supreme Court has determined falls to the federal government. The governor and counties supporting Operation Lone Star allege the Biden administration has refused to enact these laws and is therefore “derelict” in its duties.
Montgomery County, where about 60 percent of the population is white and 27 percent is Latino, is the latest Texas county to throw its weight behind Abbott by backing Operation Lone Star, the $10 billion initiative that has been widely criticized as unconstitutional and leading to civil rights abuses. The opaque nature of the program and its funding has raised concerns about the reasons a county some 350 miles from the border recently supported the initiative.
“It's hard to say that the counties that have declared disasters or invasions are geographically the counties that make the most sense to do so,” said Bob Libal, a Texas-based consultant for Human Rights Watch who has researched Operation Lone Star. “It really seems like a political exercise that has been rewarded with money from the state.”
Financial incentive
Abbott launched Operation Lone Star in March 2021 in response to increased border crossings, which he has called an invasion.
The initiative has sent the Texas National Guard to the border, installed border buoys and razor wire, bussed migrants to other cities, and prosecuted migrants for crimes such as illegal trespassing. Human rights groups criticize the initiative for leading to migrant deaths and deadly car chases, without any data that shows it is decreasing illegal immigration as it intends. It is estimated to cost taxpayers around $2.5 million dollars per week.
To become part of Operation Lone Star and thus eligible for funding through the initiative, counties must either be part of the disaster declaration issued by the governor or issue their own disaster declaration. Of the counties surrounding Houston, Galveston and Chambers are included in the governor’s disaster declaration. Galveston County has sent deputies to the border since August 2021, but it’s unclear if Montgomery County will do the same.
This funding model creates a financial incentive for counties to sign on, according to Libal.
“These declarations seem to have very little to do with the border,” Libal said. “They seem to be much more about declaring political loyalty to the governor, and then pulling down grant dollars that are only available if you declare that political loyalty to the governor.”
For counties outside the border region, Operation Lone Star funds are usually used to send law enforcement to border counties or ramp up local law enforcement by purchasing new equipment or increasing hiring, said Aron Thorn, a senior staff attorney for the Beyond Borders program at the Texas Civil Rights Project.
However, the lack of transparency around the initiative makes it difficult to track how funds are being spent.
“These are not policies that are going to be written down,” Thorn said. “It's just observing the way this thing works.”
Priscilla Olivarez, policy attorney and strategist at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, criticized the Operation Lone Star funding model for focusing on law enforcement, rather than other priorities, such as water access and improvements to the Texas electrical grid.
“When we look at counties that are under this disaster declaration, I think it's important to highlight the misuse of funds and the waste that happens because these counties aren't actually receiving funds to address their legitimate needs,” said Olivarez. “What they're receiving is money to allow for Texas DPS troopers to be in their communities and for the Texas National Guard to be in their communities.”
Based on the recent Montgomery County resolution, which does not explicitly mention a disaster declaration, it’s unclear if the county has become a formal Operation Lone Star partner eligible for funding. The governor’s office, Montgomery County Judge Mark Keough and Montgomery County Commissioners Robert Walker, James Noack, Charlie Riley, and Matt Gray did not respond to a request for comment before publication.
Inciting violence
The Montgomery County resolution comes at a time when Texas’ far-right secessionist movement has picked up steam, fueling fears of increased violence at the border. On Feb. 3, the far-right Take Back Our Border convoy organized a rally at the border amplifying calls for Texas “resistance” against invaders. This is the same invasion rhetoric used by the 2019 El Paso shooter in his manifesto posted before killing 23 people.
In the Jan. 23 resolution, Montgomery County cited a clause in the Texas Constitution that allows the governor to “call forth the militia to execute the laws of the State, to suppress insurrections, and to repel invasions.” This once-fringe theory has gained traction recently with right-wing politicians and organizations, particularly since the Donald Trump presidency, even though constitutional scholars largely reject its legal legitimacy.
“It feels dangerous at this moment for people to be platforming this extremist rhetoric at the highest levels of Texas government and in counties across the state,” said Libal of Human Rights Watch.
Thorn of the Texas Civil Rights Project said this invasion rhetoric has already led to abuses at the border, with right-wing groups coming down to take immigration enforcement into their own hands.
“They will patrol the private properties on the river and have been responsible for tracking migrants on private property. There are cases of these people harassing, holding people at gunpoint, et cetera, et cetera,” Thorn said. “I frankly think that it's absolutely a call to do violence.”
The timing of the announcement also raised concern for Kristin Etter, attorney with the Texas Immigration Law Council who represents Operation Lone Star cases. She cited SB 4, a law slated to go into effect in March that would make it a state crime to enter Texas illegally, as a potential motive.
“I'm very suspicious of the timing of Montgomery County,” Etter said. “I think that places are getting ready in advance of Senate Bill 4 to do massive arrests and prosecutions.”
With an overall lack of transparency surrounding Operation Lone Star, analysts urged continued monitoring of the county’s next steps to see how it chooses to engage with Operation Lone Star.
“The interesting part with them now will be to see if this does get them into the Operation Lone Star stream of funds because there's billions of dollars that the legislature just earmarked for this,” Thorn said. “And then if they do get the funds, what do they do with them?”
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