For years, Flores has served as an immigration policy advisor to Democrats at the national level, including President Biden. She talks about what went wrong, and what Democrats should be doing now.
A Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) trooper looks over the Rio Grande at the U.S.-Mexico Border on March 23, 2021 in McAllen, Texas. Texas DPS troopers are taking part in Operation Lone Star. (Photo credit: John Moore via Getty Images)
What Is Texas’s Operation Lone Star, and What Happens If Trump Makes It a National Model? A Podcast with Texas Civil Rights Advocate Bob Libal
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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.
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.
For years, Flores has served as an immigration policy advisor to Democrats at the national level, including President Biden. She talks about what went wrong, and what Democrats should be doing now.
