A high-ranking U.S. Border Patrol official traveled from Laredo to Austin late last year to ask the senators overseeing Texas’ $4 billion border security operation to let his agents enforce state laws—highlighting the federal government’s involvement in a problem-riddled policy Texas officials are using to flog President Joe Biden.
State Senator Brian Birdwell, the committee chair at the time, laid out what was at stake. “Members, it’s my intent to bracket the discussion to address how the state of Texas can support the Border Patrol agents and operations in Texas to combat the increasing number of illegal alien crossings,” Birdwell (R-Granbury) said. “I do not want to place our Border Patrol guests in any circumstance where questions or their potential answers might be used against them in any retribution by the administration.”
Birdwell’s comment underlined the unusual circumstances of the official’s testimony before the Texas Senate Committee on Border Security. Operation Lone Star, Governor Greg Abbott’s signature border security strategy, has been plagued by due process violations and a Justice Department investigation. Abbott has been open about the political nature of Operation Lone Star, rarely making a program announcement without taking a dig at Biden. Along with building his own border wall and funding the prosecutions of immigrants arrested under state laws, the governor has sent busloads of asylum seekers to Washington, D.C., including leaving 130 people near Vice President Kamala Harris’ official residence on Christmas Eve.
