AUSTIN, Texas — The Lone Star State is underway with its latest effort to boost security along its border with Mexico following former President Donald Trump and Gov. Greg Abbott‘s (R-TX) visit to the border last week.
Abbott shared during his remarks alongside Trump that the state was moving ahead with a major construction project to house a couple of thousand military members at a permanent housing facility in Eagle Pass.
“Because we are having to do so much to secure our border, that’s exactly why 5 miles south of here, Texas has now launched its own Texas National Guard military base that will house 2,300 Texas National Guard so they will be able to swiftly and more effectively continue to secure our border,” Abbott said last Thursday while in Eagle Pass.
Since Abbott launched the state’s Operation Lone Star border security initiative in early 2021, state troopers and soldiers deployed to the border have been housed in hotels and tents.
The base camp will be located on 80 acres of land in Eagle Pass. It will include beds for 1,800 soldiers with the ability to house 500 more people. A 700-seat dining hall, recreation center, laundry facilities, chaplaincy programs, and medical and mental health facilities will also be available.
Soldiers will have individual rooms at 118 square feet in size and have one toilet per seven people. Seventy-five rooms for military brass will be upgraded with individual bathrooms.
The state expects the first 300 rooms to be up and running by mid-March, with an additional 300 rooms coming available each month through October, according to Texas Maj. Gen. Thomas Suelzer.
At present, roughly 3,000 National Guard members are deployed up and down the state’s border under Operation Lone Star though that figure fluctuates month to month.
“The key thing I want you to take away from this is that we are providing a better quality of life for our Texas National Guard soldiers,” said Texas-appointed Border Czar Mike Banks during a press conference on Feb. 16.
Josh Trevino, chief of intelligence and research at the conservative-leaning Texas Public Policy Foundation in Austin, said the move “makes a lot of sense.”
“The unfortunate reality is that the border crisis is not wrapping up anytime soon,” Trevino said in a phone call Monday afternoon. “I have a very hard time imagining the Texas border mission’s coming to an end any time soon.”
Soldiers cannot carry out law enforcement duties, such as arresting people. However, the soldiers guard the river’s edge and apprehend immigrants as they cross and detain them until law enforcement can take people into custody. They have also led the state initiative of installing barriers, including buoys and concertina wire, in various locations statewide.
The undertaking is expected to cost $171 million, and Texas-based company Team Housing Solutions won the contract to build the facility, according to the San Antonio Express-News.
In total, the state has budgeted $11 billion on Texas border security initiatives since President Joe Biden took office in early 2021.
The new base camp will be the state’s third such site, following ones in nearby Del Rio and Laredo.
Brendan Steinhauser, a leading GOP political consultant in Texas and partner with Steinhauser Strategies, proposed that the idea had likely been floated for some time given that the Biden-era border crisis has proven to be a longer-term problem as opposed to a monthslong fad.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“It’s probably been something that Gov. Abbott and his advisors have thought about and talked about for a while,” Steinhauser said on Monday. “Now that he sees there’s a lot of public and private support to do that here in Texas, and there’s very little downside politically, I think he is going to double down on these sorts of strategies and tactics to try and show he’s doing everything he can to secure the border in Texas.
“This is a huge step for the state of Texas and for the governor because it shows that he’s committed to the long term and that Texas troops are not going anywhere for the foreseeable future,” Steinhauser said.
