McALLEN, Texas (Border Report) — The State of Texas is offering President-elect Donald Trump a newly acquired border ranch in rural Starr County for the new administration to build deportation facilities to help it carry out its campaign immigration promises.
Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham on Tuesday sent Trump a letter offering him 1,400 acres for the construction of deportation facilities and a staging area to carry out his massive deportation plans for undocumented immigrants in the United States.
“I am offering President-elect Trump over 1,400 acres of state land on the southern border to aid his administration in carrying out their deportation plans to place the safety and well-being of all Americans first and foremost,” Buckingham said Wednesday in a statement.
“As Texas Land Commissioner and steward of over 13 million acres, it’s been my promise to all Texans since assuming my role at the GLO to use every tool at my disposal to gain complete operational control of our southern border,” she added.
The state purchased the purchased the ranch on Oct. 23 with the intent for Texas to build a 1.4-mile border wall along the section bordering the Rio Grande.
The ranch is not contiguous with the 1.7-mile segment of border wall the state first built in Starr County, but it is close to the area, which is outside of La Grulla, Texas.
The 1.7-mile first section of Texas-funded and built border wall in Starr County, outside La Grulla, was completed in 2022. Weeds and growth are seen Oct. 29, 2024, at the base of the 30-foot bollards. (Sandra Sanchez/Border Report)
In an interview with Border Report last month, shortly after the land purchase, Buckingham said the rest of the ranch would be used to continue to farm row crops, like corn, sorghum, cotton and onion, which the land has previously used to grow by issuing agricultural leases.
However, Buckingham has now offered the ranch to be used to house undocumented immigrants who are being prepared for deportation.
“My office is fully prepared to enter into an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or the United States Border Patrol to allow a facility to be built for the processing, detention, and coordination of the largest deportation of violent criminals in the nation’s history,” Buckingham wrote in her letter to Trump.
“I am committed to using every available means at my disposal to gain complete operational security of our border,” she wrote.
Buckingham last month told Border Report her agency purchased the ranch after trying to acquire the land for a while because of reports that the area is notorious for sexual assaults of migrant women and children by Mexican drug cartels and human trafficking organizations.
“A lot of terrible things were happening there. The owner of the property was not amenable to letting law enforcement step on her property or the wall being built. Of course, none of us love eminent domain, so to resolve that conflict and to get the wall built more quickly, instead of a big eminent domain fight, we just made her a fair offer, and she accepted it,” Buckingham said.
“We’re just so excited to have this property. We think it’s so incredibly important for the safety of our communities to shut down this trafficking, this mass migration of illegal immigrants, and get our community safe again,” Buckingham told Border Report.
She said the agency bought the land for an unspecified amount with mineral revenue, with the approval of two independent boards.
The General Land Office also that week purchased land near the city of Marathon in Brewster Count. It also has a small segment of riverfront property that Buckingham told Border Report would be used to build more state border wall.
It is unclear if the agency also plans to offer that land in West Texas for another deportation staging cite. Border Report has asked the General Land Office and this story will be updated if more information is received.
Sandra Sanchez can be reached at SSanchez@BorderReport.com.
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