(The Center Square) – The Texas General Land Office is continuing efforts to identify tracts of GLO-managed land along the Texas-Mexico border that could be vulnerable to Mexican cartel activity.
The GLO is working with federal and state law enforcement counterparts to identify high-risk areas for potential tunnel construction and to strengthen security measures on GLO-managed lands. It’s doing so as the Department of Homeland Security is expanding tunnel surveillance efforts and two major tunnels were uncovered in El Paso, Texas, and San Diego, California, The Center Square reported.
GLO field personnel have been tasked with surveilling state properties using aerial and drone technology to detect possible tunnel entrances or suspicions of underground activity. GLO field personnel routinely surveil state property, including along the southwest border and in remote areas in far west Texas.
“Texas stands on the front lines of America’s fight for border security,” GLO Commissioner Dawn Buckingham said. “The cartels are constantly adapting, moving from the skies and waterways to underground networks of tunnels, and we will not cede an inch of land to these violent illegal criminals. The safety and sovereignty of our state are non-negotiable, and the General Land Office will use every tool at our disposal to keep Texas safe.”
GLO efforts are underway in Hudspeth County in far west Texas where authorities uncovered a campsite roughly 30 miles from the border believed to be used by Mexican cartel smuggling guides referred to as coyotes. A network of coyotes cover thousands of miles guiding foreign nationals through Central America into Mexico, through Mexico and into the U.S. They also operate along the U.S.-Canada border, The Center Square reported.
In Hudspeth County, which spans roughly 4,500 square miles, scrub brush, wildlife and cattle are more common sights than people. Texas Department of Public Safety-West troopers are assisting Border Patrol agents in the area working through Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security mission, Operation Lone Star.
Ranchers there report similar problems as those in other border counties: broken fences, cut barbed wire enabling livestock to get loose, destroyed water tanks and pipes and garbage and trash left by groups of people who’ve trespassed through.
On GLO land, officials have found trash, water bottles, tents, backpacks, clothing and other items left behind. They’ve discovered from law enforcement that coyotes had been using state-owned land to guide illegal border crossers to a region north of Sierra Blanca, an unincorporated area and the county seat, to reach Interstate 10, a major smuggling route.
El Paso is roughly 90 miles west.
Hudspeth and neighboring counties are extremely remote desert areas with sparse populations. The region, which includes the Big Bend National Park, caves, cliffs and ravines, is not suitable to building a border wall. Tunnels are also not feasible in the area.
The majority of apprehensions in the area have been of single military age men carrying backpacks full of drugs and smugglers of men and teenage boys who can hike the ravines and traverse through a desert, The Center Square has reported.
Four counties east, Terrell County was one of the first counties to declare an invasion during the border crisis, citing smuggling activity, The Center Square reported. Its judge and other Democrats in border counties left the Democratic Party and voted for President Donald Trump. Last year, they helped usher in a red wave flipping nearly all Texas border counties red for the first time in state history, citing the border crisis, The Center Square reported.
The GLO has purchased land in border counties for years. Last year, it purchased the largest privately owned ranch in Texas in Brewster County, which spans more than 350,000 acres and 552-square-miles. It’s located in the CBP Big Bend Sector, which under the Biden-Harris administration reported the greatest number of illegal border crossers in recorded history. It is the largest southwest border sector and the least staffed and least populated.
The GLO also purchased land in Starr County to build the state’s border wall. Buckingham also offered the Trump administration access to GLO property in Starr County, more than 1,400 acres, to construct deportation facilities and staging areas.
At the height of the border crisis and as the Biden administration fought Abbott’s OLS efforts, the GLO also worked with Texas DPS to clear Fronton Island to combat cartel activity and violence in the Rio Grande Valley, The Center Square reported.
In west Texas, officials are primarily targeting gotaways who are known to traverse remote and dangerous desert terrain. Gotaways is the official CBP term for foreign nationals who illegally enter in areas to evade capture, don’t make immigration claims, often have criminal histories including being previously deported, and are considered dangerous by law enforcement. More than two million gotaways were reported during the Biden administration, The Center Squar exclusively reported.
