Former president Donald Trump, the leading Republican presidential contender this year, on Thursday is expected to travel to Eagle Pass, Tex., the city that has turned into a showcase for Gov. Greg Abbott’s state-led border crackdown, Operation Lone Star. Abbott has deployed thousands of National Guard troops, spools of concertina wire that stretch for miles and spiked floating barriers in the middle of the Rio Grande — a show of force meant to deter illegal crossings through the Eagle Pass area.
In January, Abbott, also a Republican, seized control of the city’s riverfront recreation area, Shelby Park, and kicked out the U.S. Border Patrol, which had used the space as an outdoor processing area. He announced plans this month to build an 80-acre military base near the riverbanks that will house up to 2,300 National Guard troops assigned to border duties.
The city of Eagle Pass (population: 28,500) — a once-sleepy border town surrounded by melon fields and pecan orchards — became the front line of Texas’s battle with the federal government over President Biden’s immigration policies. Illegal entries through the area have fluctuated during the past several years, but the volume of people crossing into Eagle Pass in recent months reached historic levels.
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The town is the site of one of the busiest railroad crossings from Mexico, the United States’ largest trading partner. Migrants with little money traveling north through Mexico often climb abroad freight trains, risking severe injury and death.
In December, when enforcement by Mexican immigration authorities went slack because of a budget squeeze, tens of thousands of migrants rode the trains north toward Eagle Pass. When one of the trains arrives at the border, huge crowds appear along the riverbanks and leave U.S. agents quickly overwhelmed. That typically leads to higher numbers of migrants released into the United States, rather than detained and potentially sent back out of the country.
Another reason crossings are high in Eagle Pass — part of what U.S. Customs and Border Protection calls the Del Rio sector — is the relative ease of fording the Rio Grande. It is the same stretch of river where thousands of mostly Haitian migrants waded across in September 2021 and formed a sprawling outdoor camp in nearby Del Rio, one of the first border emergencies that dealt a blow to Biden’s management record.
Biden is scheduled to visit the border Thursday in Brownsville, Tex., to urge support for bipartisan efforts to provide additional funding for U.S. immigration authorities as well as U.S. cities struggling to shelter migrants. The effort recently stalled in Congress after Trump urged Republican lawmakers to oppose it. Brownsville has been a major crossing point in recent years but has seen far fewer entries in recent months than Eagle Pass.
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Though the Rio Grande in the Eagle Pass area isn’t as deep as it is further downstream, water levels and currents change rapidly, and the area has become notorious for drownings. CBP has recorded at least 200 migrant deaths in the Del Rio sector since 2017, government data shows. Some drowning victims are recovered by Mexican authorities or never found.
In December, U.S. border agents recorded nearly 250,000 illegal crossings, the most ever in a single month. The Del Rio sector — and especially Eagle Pass — was the second-busiest location along the entire Mexico border (after southern Arizona), with 71,048 crossings.
Since then, Mexican authorities have ramped up patrols and checkpoints. In January, illegal crossings through the Del Rio sector dropped to 16,712, the latest CBP data shows. Abbott has claimed credit for the change, but Department of Homeland Security officials say Mexico’s efforts and seasonal factors played a bigger role.
The Del Rio sector is only one of the main routes into Texas. CBP’s Rio Grande Valley sector has typically seen greater volumes of crossings, as well as the El Paso sector, which extends into New Mexico.
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Since 2021, the migrant influx has overwhelmed local authorities in Maverick County (home to Eagle Pass), straining public services including emergency responders and medical facilities. CBP opened a large tent facility to help manage and add detention and processing capacity.
The strains on Eagle Pass and Maverick County created an opportunity for the Texas governor to intervene with Operation Lone Star. The city signed onto a state emergency declaration calling the large numbers of border crossers “an invasion,” empowering the state to deploy troops and file criminal trespassing charges against migrants on public land.
Texas set up “Camp Charlie” in 2021, less than a mile from the CBP tent facility, to temporarily house soldiers deployed on border duties. The troop presence overwhelmed local hotels and sent the rental market sky-high.
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“It’s absurd to believe that we have to fight the federal government daily,” said Mike Banks, a retired Border Patrol agent appointed by Abbott to be the state’s border czar.
“Either do the job that you’ve been mandated by Congress to do as the federal government or just get out of the way and let us get it done,” Banks said Feb. 16 in Eagle Pass, where Abbott announced plans for the new base. “Because Texas is going to protect Texas.”
Abbott’s new plan will transform 80 acres of riverfront property into a more permanent operating base to house up to 2,300 troops. The establishment of a Texas military base on the Rio Grande harks back to the city’s origins, when Eagle Pass was established as a garrison for the U.S. Army during the Mexican-American War.
Texas continues to limit the Border Patrol’s access to Shelby Park, and Abbott has described plans to extend the National Guard deployment along the riverbanks, where some migrants continue to cross on the outskirts of town.
The standoff between Texas and the Biden administration is taking place in federal court. In January, the Supreme Court upheld federal authorities’ right to remove concertina wire that interferes with Border Patrol operations. A district-court ruling directing Texas to move its floating barrier in the Rio Grande is on hold pending appeal.
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Both sides are awaiting a district-court ruling on the Justice Department’s effort to block Texas from implementing S.B. 4, a new law set to take effect March 5 that will give state and local police the ability to arrest and jail migrants who cannot prove legal status in the United States.
Sources: Eagle Pass satellite imagery provided by Maxar Technologies. Mapping data via USGS, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and OpenStreetMap.
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