Gov. Greg Abbott has blasted the federal government’s efforts to undermine Texas’ border security efforts.
According to the governor’s office, the Biden administration demanded that Texas return Fronton Island—an uninhabited island in Starr County—to its prior state before Texas militarized the land to secure it from transnational criminal cartels.
A letter written by Commissioner Maria-Elena Giner, appointee to the United States Section of the International Boundary and Water Commission, alleges that the state’s General Land Office “has altered the flow of the Rio Grande by engaging in activities on Fronton Island without USIBWC’s approval.”
The letter accused the state’s GLO of trespassing on federal land while in the process of managing “cleanup” and facilitating security around the plot of land.
In response, Abbott penned a letter to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris blasting the federal government’s attempts to undo Texas’ border security initiatives.
While the administration asks GLO to revert the island to its previous state, Abbott wrote, “You are either unaware of, or indifferent to, what those ‘pre-construction conditions’ were.”
Abbott explained that before Texas secured Fronton Island, evidence showed violent transnational criminal cartels reigned over the area and utilized it to terrorize communities.
Cartels had been running rampant in the island’s brush and vegetation for years, the governor’s letter explains. “Bullet-pocked structures” were also erected near the river to facilitate illegal border crossings and spy on law enforcement.
They were also used to hide weapons, construct explosives, and flee law enforcement.
Abbott then pressured the administration to answer if it is aware that reverting the island to a previous condition would demand the state to return grenades, rocket launchers, and Improvised Explosive Devices to Fronton.
“I will not cede state land to transnational criminal cartels smuggling people, weapons, and drugs,” Abbott declared.
“Nor will I sit idly by as these threats endanger Texas law enforcement and Texas communities,” he continued. “I will, instead, continue to utilize every lawful tool to secure Texas’s border and defend its citizens.”
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