By: Jason Hopkins, Daily Caller News Foundation
The State of Texas offered Tuesday more than 1,000 acres of land for President-elect Donald Trump to use for his mass deportation efforts.
The Trump administration will have roughly 1,400 acres of land in Starr County, Texas, at its disposal for the construction of deportation facilities, Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham, a Republican, stated in a letter to the president-elect. The offer came as a far cry from the growing number of Democratic governors and mayors who are publicly declaring they will oppose Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda.
“I am writing to formally offer 1,402 acres of land in Starr County, Texas to be used to construct deportation facilities,” Buckingham wrote to the president-elect. “The Texas General Land Office (GLO) currently owns a 1,402-acre tract roughly 35 miles west of McAllen, Texas.”
“My office is fully prepared to enter into an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or the United States Border Patrol to allow a facility to be built for the processing, detention, and coordination of the largest deportation of violent criminals in the nation’s history,” Buckingham continued.
Before winning in an electoral landslide against Vice President Kamala Harris on Election Day, then-candidate Trump had been clear about his plans for border and immigration enforcement.
Trump pledged to resume construction of the U.S.-Mexico border wall, revive the Remain in Mexico program, hire more Border Patrol agents and bring an end to birthright citizenship for those born on U.S. soil to illegal migrant parents. Most notably, he has also vowed to embark on the “largest deportation program in American history.”
The president-elect doubled down on this goal Monday morning by confirming reports that he intends to declare a national emergency and use military assets to help carry out his mass deportation agenda.
However, a growing number of Democratic politicians across the country say they are not on board with Trump’s plans to repatriate illegal migrants.
The governors of Illinois, Massachusetts, California and Arizona have publicly declared they will not allow their law enforcement to help in any upcoming federal immigration enforcement efforts. The mayor of Boston has made similar comments, and the Los Angeles government has successfully fast-tracked sanctuary city legislation in preparation for Trump’s second term at the White House.
Texas — which has been forced to endure much of the heavy lifting of the ongoing border crisis under the Biden-Harris administration — is much more supportive of the president-elect’s agenda.
“I am committed to using every available means at my disposal to gain complete operational security at the border,” Buckingham wrote to Trump. “Please let me know if I can answer any questions you may have.”
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