In 2021 Texas governor Greg Abbott created Operation Lone Star, a state-funded system for immigration enforcement and detention. At a cost of more than $11 billion, the system has deployed thousands of National Guard soldiers and state police to the Texas-Mexico border. These deployments have become the backdrop for the MAGA movement’s “invasion” messaging, and they helped Trump regain the White House. Now Trump is saying he will make Operation Lone Star a model for his national immigration policy.
Texas-based civil rights advocate Bob Libal, an U.S. consultant for the international nonprofit Human Rights Watch, has been monitoring Operation Lone Star since it began. In this podcast, Libal explains in depth what Operation Lone Star is and its many impacts on Texas and its border communities. “Every aspect of this program is utilized for maximum publicity and to gin up anti-immigrant sentiment that is increasingly radical,” Libal says. He also talks about the incredible resiliency of border communities and how they have fought back against the threats to their civil and human rights. “I think the rest of the country can learn from Texas border communities,” Libal says.
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