Immigration Enforcement: Texas Border Operation Struggles

In late February, a grim morale survey of National Guard troops stationed along the Texas border was leaked to the Texas Tribune. The survey included responses from nearly 250 members of a Texas Air National Guard unit involved in Governor Greg Abbott’s “Operation Lone Star,” a deployment of some 10,000 state troopers and National Guard units to enforce the state border. Its findings — telling of troops’ “frustration, anxiety and anger,” according to the Tribune — were consistent with a number of public indicators of dissatisfaction among border-enforcement officials. On top of a January Texas Standard report detailing “pay delays, cuts to tuition assistance and low morale,” an Army Times piece in late December reported that there have been at least four suicides since the program was launched last March.

These reports scratch the surface of a struggling, if ambitious, state-led effort to patrol a formidable stretch of the U.S.–Mexico border at a time when federal immigration enforcement is falling short.

About the Author

Nate Hochman

Nate Hochman was a staff writer at National Review.

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In late February, a grim morale survey of National Guard troops stationed along the Texas border was leaked to the Texas Tribune. The survey included responses from nearly 250 members of a Texas Air National Guard unit involved in Governor Greg Abbott’s “Operation Lone Star,” a deployment of some 10,000 state troopers and National Guard units to enforce the state border. Its findings — telling of troops’ “frustration, anxiety and anger,” according to the Tribune — were consistent with a number of public indicators of dissatisfaction among border-enforcement officials. On top of a January Texas Standard report detailing “pay delays, cuts to tuition assistance and low morale,” an Army Times piece in late December reported that there have been at least four suicides since the program was launched last March.

These reports scratch the surface of a struggling, if ambitious, state-led effort to patrol a formidable stretch of the U.S.–Mexico border at a time when federal immigration enforcement is falling short.