Texas officials are celebrating the seizure of an island near the United States-Mexico border described as a "safe haven" for cartel drugs and weapons.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced Friday that work has begun on an 80-acre military facility to provide some 1,800 soldiers to better defend the southern border from illegal migrants, extending along the Rio Grande and six miles south to Shelby Park. The plan was mocked on Tuesday by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who called it "politicking" and not a "serious" response to record levels of illegal immigration.
Republican Congressman Tony Gonzales, who represents Texas' 23rd Congressional District—spanning across more of the U.S-Mexico border than any other district—told Newsweek last week that Mexican cartels have helped the Biden administration bring down the numbers of illegal immigrants coming to the U.S.
Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham said Wednesday on Fox Business Network's Mornings With Maria Bartiromo that she recently returned from Fronton Island, described as being "on the most violent part of the border."
The island, situated across a stretch of land in the Rio Grande in Texas' Starr County, was secured by the Texas National Guard and Department of Public Safety last November. It was a site of automatic gunfire and continuous violence, she said.
Buckingham recently touted the efforts of statewide officials to maintain safety in an area described as a "densely wooded" 170-acre refuge that "provided concealment for trans-national criminal activity." Texas and Mexican cartels both claimed occupancy of the land before it was seized.
"They had literally a safe haven to stash weapons, drugs and people," said Buckingham, a former state senator who was elected to her current position in 2022. "Tons and tons of migrants coming across."
Texas officials also discovered explosive devices and weapons illegal in the U.S., as well as a "massive amount of drugs that could kill every man, woman or child a couple times over." She was referring to fentanyl.
Since its seizure, the Texas DPS and military soldiers put concertina wire, or razor wire, that has similarly been placed in high-volume migrant areas like Shelby Park.
"I can tell you there are no more weapons caches and people coming across [the border]," Buckingham added.
Sargeant Jake Jordan, Joint Task Force Lone Star Special Response Team platoon sergeant, said last fall that engineering teams installed over 1.4 miles of wire to alleviate what was a decades-old problem.
"The project was executed in a timely and safe manner and provides not only the wire blocking obstacle but allows [National] Guard and law enforcement freedom of maneuver around the entire island," he said.
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