Abbott provides update on Operation Lone Star

thank you everybody for joining with us here today and in particular i want to express my gratitude to the director of the texas department of public safety and director mccraw uh general norris who is the accident general for the texas national guard we have with us brendan judd the president of the national border patrol council and i also want to thank all of the texas department of public safety troopers agents texas rangers and all the members of the national guard who are involved in operation lone star and i want to thank all of the border patrol agents who serve on the front lines every single day dealing with the challenges that we see increasing along the border and then finally i want to thank local law enforcement local law law enforcement has been working side by side with the texas department of public safety as they've been going about the process of responding to the challenges on the border so the butt administration's open border policies have created an open season for human traffickers for drug smugglers for cartels and gangs these criminals are preying upon women and children exposing them to abuse and to terror because the federal government is failing to act to respond to these dangers texas is stepping up to secure the border and to keep our communities safe to achieve that goal about a month ago i launched what we have named operation lone star operation lone star was launched for the purpose of filling the gaps that are left open as border patrol officers are busy occupied with detaining the large number of people who are coming across the border and when border patrol officers are occupied with those detentions it leaves wide swaths of sectors open for the cartels and drug smugglers as well as in human smugglers to be able to get people in drugs and contraband across the border without operation lone star those cartels and criminals would have open season to get across the border whatever they wanted to get across the border because of operation lone star the numbers are staggering what has been done just over the past almost month operation lone star effectively began on march the 4th so less than a month ago in 28 days the texas department of public safety has made 509 criminal arrests they've also made more than 16 000 referrals of illegal immigrants to border patrol so the the math on this is the department of public safety made more than 21 arrests per day of criminal arrests and they made more than 571 referrals of illegal immigrants per day to the border patrol i want to give you just an idea of the type of arrests that the texas department of public safety has been involved in in early march one of the arrests involved a stash house in the rio grande valley while investigating the stash house department of public safety troopers and special agents discovered four illegal immigrants and a gang member the gang member was wanted on two counts of rape of a child under the age of 13. on march the 8th public safety troopers made a traffic stop that resulted in the arrest of a man wanted for continuous sexual assault of a child on march the 14th troopers attempted to make a traffic stop that escalated into a pursuit after the pursuit was done and after stopping the vehicle they discovered that the male driver was smuggling illegal immigrants including a 14 year old child who had been sexually assaulted the driver also had child pornography on his phone on march the 16th the department of public safety assisted the border patrol with several waves of illegal immigrants being smuggled on rafts this included 217 illegal immigrants apprehended including among that group 152 children one of those children was a six month old girl who was thrown into the river by smugglers as brendan judd explained to me there is a reason why smugglers and cartel members do things like throw a young child into the river they know that when doing so it will cause border patrol and texas department of public safety officers to focus on that child and to save that child like what they did do when law enforcement is focused on saving a child that opens the door to the opportunity for the drug smugglers and the cartels to engage in other crimes and that's part of what happened but to show you how abusive these people are there was a mother among the group who was stomped on by the cartels and broke her leg and that woman was also helped by the texas department of public safety working alongside the border patrol do we have trooper water with us right here trooper woodard with the texas department public safety was the trooper who was involved in the rescuing of that child as well as dealing with the mother who had a broken leg trooper thank you for your service so this is just a small sample of the dangerous criminals that the texas department of public safety is apprehending and the horrific abuse these criminals inflict on their victims a concern that we have is how brazen and open the drug cartels are getting in trying to recruit people here in the state of texas to assist them in these crimes i was provided these i'm going to show you these two pictures if you can zoom in these are two pictures from tick tock and these are our ads or videos and things that are being run by cartels on tick tock trying to recruit people in texas to assist them commit their crime with the promise of money as well as other things and it's rare i am told to see the cartels open or or operate that openly so that it could be seen by law enforcement but you can be assured now law enforcement will be following up tracking down who these criminals are and doing whatever needs to be done to make sure that these types of operations will be shut down bottom line is this operation lone star is doing everything they can to keep our community safe but this problem is not going to be fixed until the biden administration does its job to secure our border and to get this crisis under control next we will have director mccraw thank you governor appreciate it public safety is the protection of people from harm when we talk about public safety in the department concerning the state of texas and the governor and the state legislature is that it means all people in texas an unsecured border with mexico has resulted in corridors of crime is the bottom line i mean mexican cartels is enemy number one and throughout texas the nation these corridors they bring cocaine methamphetamine marijuana fentanyl any particular drugs that's marketable the cartels have it but importantly people we say people as the governor indicated it's a commodity to them they don't care they'll throw a two-year six-month-old baby into the water they just don't care i mean they will stash they will starve they'll beat they'll rape and they'll abandon these children and so it's very important one of the things that the governor is number one priority is that when we fill these gaps because make no mistake about it when you put those many unaccompanied children and family units into one area the rio grande valley area border patrol becomes overwhelmed we saw in 2014 we saw it in 2019 and we certainly see it right now when that happens the car it provides a great opportunity for cartels to move uh migrant children that are high valued okay that are moving towards the sex trafficking industry as well as criminal aliens between the ports of entry they're not trying to be interdicted and they're trying to avoid apprehension and they're available at that point so it's important to be able to fill that particular gap which we're doing right now we're certainly proud to work with our brave border patrol partners as well as local law enforcement and we're seeing a lot of things we hadn't seen in the past in terms of brazenness of some of these smugglers and coyotes that's sitting on ranch lands and refusing to leave and moving into areas as well as carrying weapons on this side of the border which is unusual occurrence and certainly we're concerned about that social media who would have thought they're advertising for more coyotes they need more smugglers to come from san antonio and houston we didn't see that before but again this is a billion dollar a year industry by organizations that we've never seen before the mexican cartels there's nobody more violent more brazen more depraved and i'd say more cowardly in terms of what they do with women and children than the mexican cartels and their enemy number one they represent a domestic security threat to mexico and certainly a public safety threat for all of texans and i would argue the nation as well so uh thank you governor we have an opportunity to be able to surge and we're here to serve and we're proud to protect and serve the state of texas and work with our border patrol partners and certainly local law enforcement thank you sir thank you among the other numbers that the texas department of public safety has achieved just over the less than one month they through this operation have seized more than 14 pounds of cocaine more than 23 firearms they have arrested nine people who have been identified as members of gangs seized almost a million dollars in currency and so this is just the beginning of what is going to be an onslaught unless and until the obama administration steps up and does something about it next is the accident general for the texas national guard general tracy norris thank you sir um sir from the date you activated us on march 4th within five days we were activating the state active duty under the governor within five days we had a number of observation posts and listening posts on the border in support of our texas department of public safety our role is to add eyes and ears to dps as well as customs and border protection in order to detect identify and recognize any activity illegal activity that is going on and call that in to dps and the border patrol and make it quicker for them to be able to react to where that event is our soldiers are using multi-sensor systems that are able to detect recognize and identify that activity and sir again um our soldiers have been not unfamiliar with the border they've been down here several times and supported dps and i just want to thank the employers of all our guardsmen and also the families that support our guardsmen i want to thank them for all of that they've done the last couple of years great point thanks indeed but also thanks to the members of the texas military branch for being down here we appreciate that yes sir next we have brandon judd the president of the national border patrol council governor thank you i appreciate you uh inviting me to be here my name is brandon jett i'm the president of national warfare council i operate largely in a political aspect but i also put on a uniform and i go out and i patrol the border to try to secure the safety and security of the american public i will tell you that policies matter without policies we will have the problems that we're we're seeing today i want to thank the governor first and foremost for allowing texas dps and i would call on the governors of our other border states new mexico arizona and california to also step up to the plate and assist in this issue problem is is we wouldn't need governors like governor abbott if the federal government would do their job because policies matter and if we continue down the road that we're going we're going to continue to see these numbers can increase and the safety and security of the state of texas will be threatened and the safety and security of the entire country will also be threatened if we continue to allow people to cross our borders illegally to be released into the united states pending a hearing sometime down the road we're going to continue to see this problem rise we must look for the solutions and if the biden administration wants to say that the remaining mexico program was inhumane then he needs to look for a solution you cannot get rid of a program that worked and was very effective and not replace it with something else and that is in fact what the biden administration did there are solutions that can be had if we were to set up courts to adjudicate these cases then we would give relief to those individuals that deserve relief under u.s law we would also send back those individuals that are coming here to gain the system that never have an intent to leave this country regardless of the of whether they receive in order of deportation we can solve this issue and we can solve this problem and by solving the problem we can release texas dps to do the job that they they were supposed to be set up for but if we don't then we're going to have to call on governors like governor abbott and thank goodness texas does have a governor that's willing to step up to the plate when the federal government fails so again governor abbott i appreciate the time i appreciate what you're doing and the resources you're devoting to an issue that you have that you shouldn't be you should not have to solve thank you and thanks to the men and women of the border patrol thank you we'll take a few questions yes please speak up a little bit sure we don't arrest anybody for crossing the border legally we arrest smugglers and there has been smugglers that we have arrested as the governor talked about over 16 000 ias or illegal indians we came in contact with them those referred to the border patrol we did not maintain them there's no there's no state immigration violation smugglers yes we charge with them drugs as the governor talked about marijuana and cocaine we made arrests in those particular things and stash houses where we have a smuggler and of course he documented three incidents in terms we had sexual assaults on children underage children that were coming here illegally and no doubt being was exploited when we continue to be exploited those are the majority of the type of criminal violations that we came in contact with that period of time after the duration it depends on what the what happens on the ground as they come and border patrol swamped i mean the governor's made it very clear that the department of public safety national guard is going to be there to support them and we'll be continuing operations that regard the one thing that shift from the last time that the governor had a press conference is del rio sector it became the number two sector in texas and that's never happened before we had those types of numbers so we got the call from not just the sector chief but from the sheriff's i know representative morales who was very concerned about that area so the governor had us increase our tempo and resources within that del rio sector as well i can say that when we do that we move to 12-hour shifts make sure we cover 24-7 we bring resources outside so that's i hope that answers both your questions well let me add some additional information because you did bring up one other topic i want to make sure you understood the answer to you you mentioned special interest arrest i don't know if you were intending by that but that is a term that's used uh that deals with people who come from countries with ties to terrorism is that what you were referring to sure so we we had discussions about that in our meeting before we came down here where the discussion was that yes in fact there have been people who are called special interest arrests people who are coming from countries with ties to terrorism and that's one of the extreme dangers that we face and the people who are special interests uh coming from terrorist countries they're not the kind of people are going to walk up and turn themselves over to border patrol or to dps they're the type of people that the cartels get a whole lot of money for to try to sneak through the gaps while the border patrol is occupied dealing with the children that they are dealing with and that's exactly why the the bite administration needs to step up and explain to his fellow americans that there are terrorists trying to get into the united states across the texas border and the federal government has to step up and do something about it there is but we're not sure we're going to discuss them so minority minority leader mccarthy he highlighted this issue just a couple weeks ago when he was down on the border and uh he learned that there were several individuals from special interest countries that had been arrested i personally have arrested people from all over the globe whether it be poland russia bangladesh brazil we deal with people that come from all over the the world the politicians want to make this an issue of the of honduras el salvador guatemala and mexico and it's just not we get them from all over the world and that's why it's so important that we have texas dps because as the cartels continue to flood us with unaccompanied children as they continue to flood us with family units it takes our resources out of the field and if it's not for the texas dps to plug those holes up that the cartels are creating artificial gaps in our coverage and if it's not for texas dps to plug those holes we would have a lot more coming across into the united states yeah why don't we put him yes why don't you play the mask off and here's here's a microphone i think he was the one involved in it younger much better looking version so just tell him everything about what happened okay i just i'd established a laying position and seen the smugglers bringing approximately six people across on a raft i gotten a little bit more brush on me and the raft had gotten into a tree just on the other side of a tree that had cane in it um i heard splashing and ayuda ayuda from a distressed woman once i i have not vision at this point i climb climb into a tree and see that this woman is hanging onto a tree branch with the baby in her arm the baby's in her arm and the water is going over the baby so i got above her kind of fell in grabbed the baby held the baby like a football and helped the woman onto a tree branch positioned myself back on the tree and then walked out i got up to the to the bank and on the picture that you've seen i started rubbing the chest of the baby because the baby wasn't moving at that point finally seeing that the baby started moving started crying and uh handed off the baby to a ranger and then help the other five back onto the bank the that baby was turned over to uh to wardrobe resources but that was a family unit that was a woman and child most likely because the age of the child most likely that those two individuals were released into into the united states go ahead what comment do you have that the bible administration says that they are returning 80 70 something percent of the migrants back to mexico and this question also goes to the foreign council is that alleviating anything how is all i can tell you is that we see increasing numbers of people coming across the border i can tell you the words that were used uh by the homeland security secretary marcus himself and that is this is an unprecedented number of people coming across the border the most in more than 20 years and we're just getting going in the process these numbers will continue to increase because the by administration has established open border policies making it clear that they are going to allow people to come in and making it clear that we have thousands of people in locations across just the state of texas whether it be in carrizo springs or in midland or in dallas or now on military bases and so as the numbers continue to increase it is clear there's no slowing down in the number of people coming across the border so to answer that question you have to take a snapshot in time and if you go back to inauguration day yes it was probably close to 80 percent of the people were in fact being expelled under title 42 but then you had an explosion in the numbers uh numbers that were absolutely unprecedented we've never seen these types of numbers of unaccompanied children before and then you had the carve outs for title 42 and of course you started to see even more people axios which generally tends to be on the liberal leaning axials fact checked president biden and said in the week that he gave his press conference it was only about 13 percent that were being expelled so again you have to take a snapshot in time you have to look at what are the current conditions and what are the drivers these pull factors and no we're not expelling 80 percent of the individuals that are crossing the border today if we're lucky if we're expelling or if 40 percent of those people that are crossing today are actually being removed we're lucky we have had reports of people uh you know stating that it looks like these traffickers are taunting in a sense so there's been no communication with the texas government and the mexican government there are communications obviously between the federal government and the mexican government i don't have that information provided to me but i do know that the federal government and the mexican government communicate all the time about this yes are being released on the front lines of this um and as we've been talking to them uh they've been doing a lot like trying to make sure migrants are tested quarantined if they have coveted so that they don't travel to other parts of texas and the rest of the country um they are ensuring those folks are cared for when they're here they say while uh dps is helpful they could also use resources like social workers to help deal with these families that are coming here traumatized and resources like those hotel rooms are you planning to provide any additional resources of that nature to some of these towns who are uh where these migrants are primarily being released and my second question is we've heard from uh some reports and some migrant families um about the situation at the abcois bridge there are some folks i'll let somebody else take the second question while i answer the first question and and that is uh there are well-defined organizations that are in charge of responding to each type of situation every step along the way as people come across the border illegally uh the organizations in charge of providing the level of assistance that you're talking about at the local level those organizations those are ngos associated with orr if you want a whole bunch of three-letter alpha about suit names but you know what they are uh the the uh is the o-r-r the federal government the office of refugee and resettlement uh that they are in charge of paying for and organizing all of the non-government-based organizations to provide the assistance that is needed at the local level they're the ones with the federal funding to provide that assistance and they have the job to do it one thing that we have seen is the body administration was completely unprepared for the large number of people coming across the border because they were completely unorganized with their own federal agencies the body administration was unorganized with the federal health and human services with orr with the ngos that collaborate with orr and they are just scrambling even having to rely upon military bases to put these children on because they were so inept in getting this organized to begin with but that is the federal government's job and that's one of the many things that we're saying they need to step up and start doing their job whether he right someone wants to answer the sentence so look i appreciate that question we have to have an open and honest conversation if we're going to solve this problem if we do not have that if if all we're doing is is taking short little quotes and running with those we're never going to solve this problem i don't care whether you agree with me after we have all the facts out um the truth of the answers uh what we call tops it's a temporary um processing center individuals are not supposed to be held there for more than eight hours uh if they're held there for any more than eight hours they then get transferred um to one of the other facilities most likely donna because that that ansel dewis is only supposed to be for uh family units or unaccompanied children they'll then get transferred to one of the facilities most likely donna we don't hold people at tops for more than eight hours so that's that's just not true do you know how many people were there oh we we experience large number of people that at ann's will do us all the time it just depends on how many people cross i mean there's literally on the trails there's literally signs that point them to go to the actual processing center so people that that come across the border they know exactly where to go because the signs point them there but talking about taunting um it was paul perez and i we both had the 18 senators out on the border and we took them to known smuggling routes and this was about one o'clock in the morning and when we got to one of the known smuggling routes there were actually smugglers across the river that had higher power higher powered spotlights than the flashlights that we gave the senators for that tour they were in fact taunting the senators they were telling the centers things that i can't repeat for the camera but they were telling them where they could stick it they were telling them that they were going to bring people no matter what um uh we did they were going to continue to bring people and we've and we've continued to see that i can't give you any numbers right now but yeah clearly we're doing that with everyone we come in contact with so we'll we will have some numbers later on but they're really reflected in our investigations well use an example is one of these stash houses we talked about when we had we identified an individual they've been it was holding you know four illegal aliens in that stash house and had been charged with and warrant outstanding warrants for him for the sexual assault of two two girls under the age of 13. well at that point in time an interview was followed up is there any evidence okay we used the example the governor gave an example in terms of the cell phone with pornography on another smuggler that had a young 14 year old that he had sexually assaulted so it's all the normal things we do in the interdiction protection of children that troopers are trained to to identify on the highways that are criminal conduct associated with pedophiles and sex traffickers and and the troopers do the same thing did you translate it down here and one of the second parts that is rangers following up on that or a special a dps special agent uh following up on and i want to say one thing on the taunting uh there's no law against taunting by the way okay so we don't we don't get our feelings hurt that the cartel members taunt us we get taunted on this side of the border okay that's not a big deal yes in fact there we place we bring the special operators in whether they're swat team or whether they range recon but they're part of our special operations group this trooper came from bowie texas out of wichita falls he's on our special response team out there and we identified through intel locations where the cartels were exploiting those gaps and we do locate him well he's they think he testified or talked about you know has nvgs at night and we have him in low light he was in a low profile situation try to identify cartel members coming across and interdict them uh as they can come across so the answer is yes and we'll continue to do that

Channel: KPRC 2 Click2Houston

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Keywords: Greg Abbott, Mexico, Texas, border, crisis, latest, security, videos

Id: 4Us6mdhRIic

Length: 32min 1sec (1921 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 01 2021