Greg Abbott's Operation Lone Star was a bonanza for Texas cities

EAGLE PASS — Maverick County Attorney Jaime Iracheta works in a freshly refurbished, wood-paneled office with a matching desk and leather couch set.

He holds meetings in a video-equipped conference room and drives to work in a heavy-duty Chevy Silverado 4X4 pickup with a premium trim and towing package. It cost $83,000, and it’s one of six pickups the office owns.

That doesn’t include the two Polaris Ranger Crew all-terrain vehicles purchased in December for $25,000 apiece. One of them is a Texas Edition “offering enhanced capability along with exclusive Texas Edition badging and premium paint,” procurement records show.

Lone Star is best-known for the thousands of state troopers and Texas National Guard soldiers Abbott has deployed to patrol the border, string razor wire and detain undocumented immigrants.

With less fanfare, the state also has doled out more than $100 million since 2021 to counties and cities to cover border enforcement costs. The grants were supposed to pay for more police officers and sheriff’s deputies, added jail capacity and the cost of prosecuting migrants on state trespassing charges.

Much of the grant money has been spent for those purposes. But over the last four years, millions of dollars have gone to fund routine government operations and other expenses that in some cases were unrelated to border security, an investigation by the San Antonio Express-News and Houston Chronicle found.

https://www.expressnews.com/news/texas/article/operation-lone-star-greg-abbott-waste-border-texas-20780050.php