Texas Gov. Abbott sends 400 more soldiers to assist Border Patrol

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is sending 400 specially trained National Guard soldiers to the Rio Grande Valley to assist the Border Patrol. In addition to the personnel, the deployment will add C-130 aircraft and Chinook helicopters to the 4,200 National Guard soldiers who are already stationed at the border. 

Abbott said the soldiers will coordinate and work “side-by-side” with U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents to stop undocumented immigrants from entering the country.

“Texas has a partner in the White House we can work with to secure the Texas-Mexico border,”  Abbott said in a statement. “For the past four years, Texas held the line against the Biden Administration’s border crisis and their refusal to protect Americans. Finally, we have a federal government working to end this crisis.” 

The soldiers are headed to the southernmost tip of the state, which has consistently had some of the highest levels of crossings anywhere on the border. The troops are members of the state’s Tactical Border Force. The group was established in 2023 during Abbott’s Operation Lone Star, a multibillion dollar border security mission.

During the week of Jan. 20, Abbott asked Congress for an $11 billion reimbursement for costs the state has incurred since Operation Lone Star began in 2021. 

Abbott gave a cost breakdown of different measures he implemented, including: 

• $3 billion to construct 100 miles of border wall and deploy buoys in the Rio Grande.
• $58 million on 200 miles of concertina wire and border fencing.
• $6 billion on personnel deployment, including 10,000 National Guard members and Texas Department of Public Safety troopers.

Abbott said his operation led to an 87% reduction in illegal crossings along the Texas border. He said in all, Texas law enforcement have arrested more than half a million migrants who were in the country illegally and prevented 140,000 crossings.