Texas law enforcement has returned more than 30,000 illegal immigrants to Mexico through Operation Lone Star.
From March 2021 through March 24 of this year, officers apprehended more than 359,000 illegal migrants and made more than 26,000 arrests, more than 23,000 for felony charges. They also seized more than 373 million lethal doses of fentanyl.
Texas Governor Grag Abbott recently shared Operation Lone Star’s results, and he once again criticized President Joe Biden's "open borders" policy.
Operation Lone Star continues to fill the dangerous gaps left by the Biden Administration's refusal to secure the border. Every individual who is apprehended or arrested and every ounce of drugs seized would have otherwise made their way into communities across Texas and the nation due to President Biden's open border policies.
Another milestone for #OperationLoneStar: the Texas National Guard has turned back over 30,000 illegal immigrants at our southern border.
Texas is doing Biden's job to secure the border.
While he ignores this crisis, Texas protects our nation.
More: https://t.co/jBxpn2wEAY
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) March 25, 2023
Increase in illegal immigration
This week, Rio Grande Valley Border Sector Chief Gloria Chavez announced that Border Patrol agents had eclipsed 1 million illegal migrant encounters.
Attempts by illegal immigrants to reach the United States have increased fivefold compared to 2020. In that fiscal year, Customs and Border Protection recorded 400,000 apprehensions of illegals, a figure that ballooned to 1.6 million in 2021 and 2.2 million in fiscal year 2022. From October 2022 through February 2023, the number of encounters has already reached 1 million, which has set off alarm bells among border authorities. They project that, by the end of this fiscal year, the number of immigrants detained and registered will be more than 3 million.
In his statement, Abbott mentioned the exponential increase in border crossings by Chinese nationals. In the first five months of FY2023, there were more than 4,300 encounters with Chinese nationals at the southwest border, with more than 1,300 reported last month alone. Cartels are profiting from the influx by charging Chinese individuals from $35,000 to $50,000 per person to be smuggled into the country, leading to a 900% increase in apprehensions of Chinese nationals at the southern border since last year.
DPS is dealing with an uptick in Chinese nationals, especially in the Rio Grande Valley sector, which is unusual because before we would never see this many Chinese nationals coming across this area ... It’s a very lucrative business for cartels.
