Why Texas Had to Step In
The federal government spent four years treating the border like a processing center for the world, so Texas was left to protect its own ranches, schools, and highways with state troopers and concertina wire. Operation Lone Star became necessary because Washington allowed southwest border encounters to hit 2.47 million in fiscal year 2023 alone. That number did not appear out of thin air. In fiscal year 2022 the Border Patrol recorded 2.38 million encounters along the southwest border, and by fiscal year 2024 the total had only fallen to 2.13 million, according to CBP statistics. Those figures represent millions of human beings, but they also represent millions of choices by policymakers to pretend that catch-and-release was a substitute for a secure frontier. And they are not abstract statistics in Austin or Eagle Pass. Ranchers in Kinney County found fences cut, water tanks drained, and smugglers driving across private land at night. Local school districts absorbed children who arrived with no records and no guardians. Hospitals along the border treated injuries that arrived with the flow. The Texas Department of Public Safety and the Texas National Guard were not itching for a fight with Washington. They were answering 911 calls that Washington refused to hear. The state legislature put real money behind the response. Texas has spent more than $11 billion on Operation Lone Star since 2021, funding troopers, guardsmen, razor wire, river barriers, and a new military base in Eagle Pass. That price tag is steep, but it is cheaper than pretending the problem does not exist.
The Cartels Are Not Retiring
Smuggling networks keep shifting routes and tactics, which means any pause in enforcement sends an immediate invitation to move drugs, people, and cash through unpatrolled gaps. CBP seizures of fentanyl at the Mexican border still reached 21,148 pounds in fiscal year 2024, proof that the profit motive did not disappear when headlines changed. The cartels are businesses. They study our politics. They watch court rulings. They read budget debates. When Texas tightens one stretch of river, they push traffic toward Arizona and California. When federal enforcement loosens, they surge again. That is why state-level persistence matters as much as federal policy. CBP reported that 96 percent of fentanyl seized at the border comes through the southwest border, with the vast majority hidden in vehicles at ports of entry. Yet the chaos between the ports helps the cartels in two ways. It stretches Border Patrol thin. And it creates the political noise that weakens enforcement across the board. Operation Lone Star has disrupted that pattern in the sectors where it operates. State authorities have logged more than 533,000 illegal immigrant apprehensions since the operation began, along with tens of thousands of criminal arrests and felony charges. Those numbers include human smugglers, drug runners, and gang members who would otherwise have blended into the interior. They also include ordinary people caught in a broken system. The point is not to celebrate every arrest. The point is that enforcement produces information, deterrence, and order. When state troopers patrol a county road at 2 a.m., smugglers have to factor that risk into their route. When concertina wire goes up in the river, foot traffic slows. These are not permanent solutions. They are holding actions that buy time for a federal government that still has not built a durable system.
Let the States Hold the Line
State troopers, National Guard soldiers, and local sheriffs can do what distant agencies cannot: sustain a visible presence that deters trespassers before they reach American communities. Texas has already spent more than $11 billion on border security since 2021, and that investment bought time for federal leaders to remember that enforcement is not optional. But Washington has a short memory. Every election cycle brings a fresh argument that the border is secure enough, that enforcement is cruel, or that the real problem is the states that refuse to look away. Those arguments collapsed under the weight of 2.47 million encounters. They collapsed under the weight of 21,148 pounds of fentanyl. They collapsed under the images of overloaded trains and buses rolling through Mexico toward the Rio Grande. The answer is not to federalize failure. The answer is to let states keep doing what works while Congress fixes the statutes that make removal slow and asylum claims easy to game. Texas should not have to build its own border policy. But it does. And it will, because the alternative is to surrender the ranch, the school, and the highway to people who do not belong there. The governor, the legislature, and the Department of Public Safety have shown that state power can fill a vacuum left by federal neglect. That is not defiance of the Constitution. It is the oldest duty of government: to protect the people who live under its authority. The border is not a theoretical debate. It is a dirt road, a riverbank, and a county jail at three in the morning. Until Washington proves it can manage those places, Texas should keep its foot on the line.
