Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham has offered a sizable plot of land in Starr County to President-elect Donald Trump to construct deportation facilities.
Buckingham formally made the offer in a Tuesday letter addressed to Trump.
Located 25 miles west of McAllen, the 1,402-acre ranch was acquired by the General Land Office in October 2023. Shortly afterward, Buckingham granted the Texas Facilities Commission permission to begin construction of a border wall.
The land commissioner said that her office is prepared to cooperate with the federal government to utilize the plot of land to facilitate the mass deportation of illegal aliens.
“As Texas Land Commissioner and steward of over 13 million acres, it’s been my promise to all Texans since assuming my role at the GLO to use every tool at my disposal to gain complete operational control of our southern border,” Buckingham said Wednesday.
“This is why I am offering President-elect Trump over 1,400 acres of state land on the southern border to aid his administration in carrying out their deportation plans to place the safety and well-being of all Americans first and foremost,” she continued.
Shortly after the U.S. presidential election, Trump announced that he would appoint Tom Homan as the new “border czar” to spearhead the incoming administration’s mass deportation initiative.
Starr County is also home to the 170-acre Fronton Island, which was previously utilized by criminal cartels as a “no-man’s land” to evade both United States and Mexican law enforcement.
The area was considered by both the Texas Military Department and the Texas Department of Public Safety to be the most dangerous part of the southwest border—with cartel-on-cartel gun fights occurring almost nightly across the Rio Grande.
In September, law enforcement was able to successfully rid the entire island of cartel activity. The specific operation was known as Operation Flat Top and fell under the umbrella of the border security effort known as Operation Lone Star.
“During the operation, evidence of trafficking was found, along with weapon caches and even improvised explosive devices (IEDs),” Buckingham’s letter recalls. “Operation Flat Top has been a massive success, as all cartel-related activity has dropped to zero since its completion.”
