County officials issued a disaster declaration Tuesday, saying the state’s mass arrests at the border have cost the county millions of dollars and overwhelmed its criminal justice system.

The federal government has deployed National Guard to the border for years, but more than a dozen states have dug into their own budgets to send even more personnel

Texas has sent thousands of soldiers to the border as part of Gov. Greg Abbott’s multibillion-dollar initiative Operation Lone Star. No border town has felt their presence more than Eagle Pass.

After years of competing with each other for new businesses, Valley cities want to present a united front to highlight the region’s assets.

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

News reports cite a Border Patrol bulletin that said an Indiana Guard member wounded a migrant who was stabbing another migrant at the border in El Paso.

A new law allowing local authorities to deport migrants remains tied up in court. Even if it goes back into effect, logistical challenges could complicate enforcement.

The military says a helicopter flying over the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas has crashed, killing two National Guard soldiers and a Border Patrol agent.

Gov. Greg Abbott announced Friday that the base will hold up to 2,300 soldiers who have been deployed to the border.

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

Nearly three months after Gov. Greg Abbott ordered the deployment of the 1,000-foot line of buoys and mesh in the Rio Grande, an Austin federal judge ordered the state to remove the barrier and stop building further obstructions in the river. One day later a higher court sided with Texas.

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.

Four members of the unit working on Gov. Greg Abbott’s border mission have been punished after whistleblowers reported the surveillance operation violated long-standing rules against state-run spy operations.

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.

Governor Greg Abbott gave several GOP Governors a tour of the Texas border Monday afternoon. The tour comes on the eve of a federal court hearing involving a lawsuit challenging Texas’ authority to deploy nearly a thousand feet of buoys near the Camino Real bridge in Eagle Pass.

The lawsuit alleges that four migrants who were arrested under Operation Lone Star remained locked up as long as six weeks after their criminal trespassing cases were dismissed or they served their sentences.

Governor Greg Abbott is holding a news conference on Monday with four other governors and other officials regarding Operation Lone Star.

Escalating their fight over Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ handling of immigration at the southern border, far-right representatives say they will oppose any appropriations for his agency.

Operation Lone Star originally targeted single men suspected of crossing the border illegally in mass trespassing arrests, but some claimed that not arresting women violated equal protection laws.

In the wake of reporting alleging “inhumane” practices at the Mexico-Texas border, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued a joint statement on Tuesday from Texas Border Czar Mike Banks, Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw, and Texas Adjutant Gen. Maj. Gen. Thomas Suelzer:

The Office of the Inspector General is investigating the claims, which include pushing small children and women with nursing babies back into the river and turning away a 4-year-old girl who later passed out on the riverbank from the heat.

The mistake meant about 7,400 soldiers sent to the Texas-Mexico border under Operation Lone Star were hit with higher-than-expected federal income taxes.

While the state guarantees law enforcement officers, like Department of Public Safety troopers, a $500,000 death benefit for their families if they die on duty, National Guard troops who stand shoulder to shoulder with those DPS officers on Operation Lone Star don’t have the same benefit.

Law enforcement officers who serve on Operation Lone Star get a $500,000 death benefit for their survivors if they die on duty. But National Guard troops on the same mission don’t get a dime from the state for their families if they die.

It’s the first-known incident where a soldier has shot a migrant since the mission began. The injury is non-life threatening.

State police often rely on federal immigration officials to lock up migrants on state trespassing charges, according to a new complaint by the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas. The collaboration contradicts federal and Texas officials’ attacks on each other’s immigration policies.

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.

The latest infusion was among $874.6 million in “emergency” budget transfers requested by the Texas Legislative Budget Board, which is composed of GOP state leaders and budget writers.

The number of migrant encounters at the Texas-Mexico border has climbed from 109,456 in March 2021, the month the mission began, to 116,976 in August — a failure of Abbott’s office’s stated desire to “stop this revolving door and deter others considering entering illegally.”

Two civil rights groups have expanded their request for a U.S. Department of Justice investigation into Operation Lone Star, citing evidence of risky pursuits and more frequent traffic stops of Hispanic drivers.

Governor Greg Abbott held a press conference Friday at the Anzalduas International Bridge in Mission on the ongoing border security preparations at the Texas-Mexico border.

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

Abbott said the money would be taken from the budgets of other Texas agencies, including nearly $210 million from the state’s Health and Human Services Commission over two years and about $160 million from the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Spc. Bishop Evans died after jumping into the Rio Grande to save migrants. He and other members of Operation Lone Star were not provided safety equipment. Texas Military Department said an order for buoys and ropes was made but has not been fulfilled.

Spc. Bishop E. Evans, a 22-year-old field artilleryman from Arlington, joined the Texas Army National Guard in 2019.

The soldier, Bishop E. Evans, went missing Friday morning after he jumped into the river near Eagle Pass. On Sunday, the Texas Military Department reported the search was still ongoing.

The brigadier general steps down from commanding Operation Lone Star’s military efforts after five months.

Texas Military Department leaders say they’ve addressed many of the issues that arose late last year when the mission ramped up to 10,000 service members — but more money is needed to run the mission at its current pace.

The governor has ordered thousands of state troopers and National Guard members to the border since last year. Here’s what you need to know about the initiative.

Gov. Greg Abbott’s controversial border mission was subject to a slew of bad news this week, including a major shakeup at the Texas Military Department, whose top leader Abbott replaced.

The dispatching of troops to the sprawling private ranches, far from the border, raises questions about the use of National Guard troops, who have widely decried the mission as aimless, political and oversized, as the cost of the effort has already ballooned to $2 billion a year.

Governor Greg Abbott will hold a roundtable on border security on Thursday in Weslaco as part of the one-year anniversary of Operation Lone Star.

Frustration, anxiety and anger prevailed in the survey responses obtained by the The Texas Tribune and Military Times. The survey includes responses from nearly 250 members of Task Force South, one of six units that fall under the umbrella of Operation Lone Star.

In this week’s episode, Matthew speaks with Mitchell and James about how Texas held up during the wintry weather, plus the struggles of the National Guard during their border deployment.

The governor has sent waves of troops to the border as Guard officials scramble to execute a massive mobilization that would normally take months to plan. Some Guard members say the operation has set back their income, education and well-being.

The call for action from Texas Democrats comes as another service member based in the city of Pharr survived a suicide attempt on Sunday, according to an incident report obtained by Army Times and The Texas Tribune.

Abbott said the suicides are being investigated and thinks it will come out that not all “actually occurred during Operation Lone Star.”

Abbott’s political challenger said guard members deployed to Operation Lone Star are facing late pay, being exposed to COVID-19, experiencing supply shortages and dealing with added stress that has led to multiple suicides tied to the mission.

Proponents of House Bill 9 denounced the Biden administration’s approach to border security, saying the state had no choice but to step in to ramp up enforcement.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has extended the border disaster declaration for 43 counties in South Texas.

The bill would nearly triple border security funding from the last biennium. The legislation needs one more vote of approval from the House before moving to the Senate.

Here are things to know for Friday, June 18:

Gov. Greg Abbott has directed the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to move prisoners from the Briscoe Unit in Dilley to make room for migrants crossing the border unlawfully and who have committed a state or federal crime.

The prison — Dolph Briscoe Unit in Dilley — will have capacity for about 1,000 people.

Greg Abbott criticized the Biden Administration's approach to border security at a press conference at Anzalduas Park in Mission on March 9, 2021. Credit: Jason Garza for The Texas TribuneSaying the Biden administration’s border policies make it clear that the president doesn’t care about Americans, Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday declared that the border is in a crisis and accused the president of aiding cartels and human smugglers. The Biden administration has acknowledged that the increase in migrants coming to the border is, in part, a result of new policies intended to be more humane toward migrants and asylum seekers. AdOn Tuesday, Abbott said Biden’s policies were instead aiding criminal elements who prey on migrants in Mexico by giving them more potential victims. “The Biden administration is helping the cartels make more money and grow more power,” he said.