Texas Gov. Greg Abbott deploys hundreds more troops to Texas-Mexico border
More than 400 additional Texas National Guard troops arrived at the Texas-Mexico border on Monday.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott deployed the troops to the Rio Grande Valley, where he said they'll work side-by-side with U.S. Border Patrol agents to keep migrants from illegally entering the country.
Some of those troops left from the U.S. Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base in Fort Worth Monday morning. The others left from a base in Houston.
The troops are part of the Texas Tactical Border Force, which the governor first deployed back in May of 2023 to respond to the crisis at the border.
With the additional troops, the state also sent C-130 aircraft and Chinook helicopters to the border. Late last week, the Pentagon sent 1,500 members of the military to El Paso and San Diego.
"Finally, we have a federal government working to end this crisis. Texas has a partner in the White House we can work with to secure the Texas-Mexico border," Abbott said in a statement.
State Sen. Bob Hall, R-Edgewood, said he supports the governor's deployment.
"I think it's excellent, I think it's this new day we have in government returning to common sense," Hall said. "Governing is fantastic."
State Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, said he believes the mission was unnecessary.
"The governor now has a president that he believes he can work with," Martinez Fischer said. "Let the president do his job and let the governor do his job, which is to take care of our issues within our state, not at our border."
Martinez Fischer has filed a bill that would require external audits of Abbott's Operation Lone Star, which has cost more than $11 billion to ramp up border security efforts.
"For many, many years, he's been able to do this with emergency powers where he does not have to show receipts for anything," Martinez Fischer said.
The state's border czar and directors of the Texas Department of Public Safety and Texas Military Department have previously testified before Texas Senate committees about their operations. The bill's chances in the GOP-dominated Legislature are uncertain.
Hall said he supports Abbott's move and that the state needs to think beyond the next four years.
"There is no reason to believe that if things were to reverse, and a Democrat was elected next time that they wouldn't immediately sign executive orders to go back to the insane policies that the Biden administration had," Hall said.