From video game chats, to social media, to meet-ups at nightclubs; human smuggling is not as far from your front door as you may think. Smuggling operations are using the crisis along the southern border to entice people from all walks life into risking their freedom for quick cash.

Data from Customs and Border Protection shows illegal border crossings have been going down since January.

Lawmakers created the program during last year’s legislative session.

Abbott has credited his Operation Lone Star for a recent drop in migrant encounters on the Texas-Mexico border.

The lure of quick cash helps fuel a steady stream of smuggling cases being filed in rural Texas counties along the U.S. border with Mexico.

The lure of quick cash helps fuel a steady stream of smuggling cases being filed in rural Texas counties along the southern borde

Authorities said the 26-year-old turned around at a Border Patrol checkpoint and fled from police in Kinney County.

A Texas Department of Public Safety helicopter patrolling the state’s border with Mexico has crashed, injuring at least one person.

The lawmakers’ remarks came after an investigation published Tuesday by Military Times and The Texas Tribune revealed how Texas Guardsmen at the state’s border with Mexico spied on migrants via WhatsApp and allegedly mishandled secret documents.

The Del Rio sector of our southern border is 350 miles west of Houston and has become the 2nd busiest spot for apprehensions along the southern border.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle threw their support behind a new requirement that the unit use only commissioned peace officers for enforcement actions.

With the number of people illegally crossing our southern border steadily increasing each month, according to Customs and Border Protection data, many rural counties are seeing their resources drained.

The Court of Criminal Appeals scuttled nearly 450 cases, saying migrants arrested for trespassing in Kinney County can’t ask Austin judges to hear their appeals.

The latest county to make a disaster declaration is an eight-hour drive away from the Texas-Mexico border, but local officials there say they’re under “invasion.”

Rural county courts are facing a huge increase in criminal cases due to the number of arrests being made under the auspices of Operation Lone Star. Gov. Greg Abbott has spent $4 billion on this effort, which he has repeatedly said is needed in response to the record number of apprehensions reported by Customs and Border Protection along the southern border.

Allen Amos, a visiting judge handling trespassing cases under Gov. Greg Abbott’s “catch-and-jail” border operation, allegedly used the derogatory term in a recent conversation with a defense attorney.

A Corpus Christi attorney was arrested over the weekend and accused of smuggling four men from Mexico. According to an offense report obtained by KPRC 2 Investigates, Timothy Daniel Japhet was arrested near the town of Brackettville on Aug. 13 and spent a week in jail.

Immigration law enforcement falls under the jurisdiction of the federal government. In recent months, a fringe legal theory has found more mainstream supporters who are calling on state leaders in Arizona and Texas to deport migrants with state resources.

Friends, families and attorneys have posted more than $2 million to get migrants out of prison. Defense attorneys say the rural county is erecting barriers that will keep many from recovering the money when they’re entitled to it.

Texas has been using coronavirus relief money to help pay for the multibillion-dollar deployment.

The trial included four prosecutors, and so many potential jurors were summoned the town sandwich shop was shorthanded for lunch. But a Kinney County jury Monday convicted a Honduran national in the first jury trial for trespassing under Gov. Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star.

Thousands of men have been arrested on trespassing charges under Gov. Greg Abbott’s border crackdown. A new lawsuit claims the attempt to skirt federal immigration authority is unconstitutional.

Months after the problems became apparent, migrants are still being kept in prison in violation of state laws under Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security crackdown.

The county is the most populous to embrace the Republican governor’s “catch-and-jail” policy to arrest people accused of crossing the border illegally for state crimes, including trespassing.

The number of encounters along our southern border has been increasing over the last three months. These increases come after Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported a record 1.7 million encounters along our southern border during the fiscal year 2021. Political division on this issue has prevented Congress from enacting long-term immigration reform.

A legal defense group is asking Travis County courts to throw out the arrests of hundreds of migrants swept up in the governor’s border initiative. The case is expected to draw in the Texas attorney general and address whether Gov. Greg Abbott’s plan is unconstitutional.

A Travis County judge Thursday tossed out the trespassing charge of an Ecuadorian man who said he came to the United States seeking asylum. His lawyers argued that the governor’s directive to arrest migrants on state charges unconstitutionally usurps federal immigration law.

Despite a surge of arrests under Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security initiative, a Kinney County judge removed three judges who have been helping him hear the cases. The judges had been letting some of the migrants out after months in prison, and defense attorneys say the action is retaliatory.

Migrants arrested under Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security push have been imprisoned for weeks or months waiting to appear before a judge. About 90 were finally to receive hearings this week, but court proceedings were canceled.

The migrants were arrested for trespassing, but court documents failed to specify what property they allegedly trespassed upon. It’s the latest misstep in implementation of Greg Abbott’s border initiative, which has seen frequent violations of state law and disregard for due process rights.

The almost 250 detained men, whose immediate release was ordered three days ago, are expected to be turned over to federal authorities to be detained again, deported or freed in the United States while their cases are being resolved.

Two Galveston County Constables returned to Kinney County again to answer calls for help from a sheriff who is short-handed and facing an increasing number of calls for service because of what is happening on our border.

The men were arrested by state troopers and held for weeks without facing formal charges, a violation of state law. It’s the latest misfire in Abbott’s hastily assembled effort to involve Texas in patrolling the border.

Defense attorneys have started asking courts to set migrants free because local justice systems, overwhelmed by arrests under Gov. Greg Abbott's border security push, are routinely violating state law and constitutional due process rights.

Under Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security push, Texas state police have arrested hundreds of migrants in the conservative county, usually after spotting them on cargo trains or walking remote ranch lands. Sent to a state prison retooled as an immigration jail, many men were left without lawyers for weeks.

The elected Constables for Precincts 2 and 4 in Galveston County are helping another county’s sheriff’s office that is overwhelmed by the border crisis.

At least three Galveston County deputies and one elected constable will be heading to Kinney County next week as part of Gov. Greg Abbot’s border initiative.