Texas has successfully curtailed cartel presence and criminal activity on an uninhabited border island after declaring it state property last year.
Fronton Island—located in Starr County and sitting in the Rio Grande—was once a hotspot for cartel activity. As part of Operation Lone Star, Texas law enforcement cleared it out.
Texas Department of Public Safety Spokesman Chris Olivarez said that due to the combined efforts of the General Land Office, Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham, Texas DPS, and the Texas National Guard, human smuggling and other criminal enterprises that once flourished on the island have come to an abrupt halt.
“The 170-acre island had been a foothold for the Mexican Cartels to carry out their criminal activities – human & drug smuggling for decades,” Olivarez said on X. Now, that activity is virtually nonexistent.
Texas declared the island to be state property last year. Since then, the Texas National Guard and DPS have been patrolling the plot of land near the city of Roma.
“A year later, there hasn’t been any activity at all on this side of the island,” Olivarez told KRGV. “There’s still cartel shootings that are taking place on the Mexican side.”
Earlier this month, the federal government demanded that Texas return the island to its condition before the state militarized it. The Biden-Harris administration alleged that Texas was trespassing on federal land while managing the “cleanup” of the island and facilitating security.
In response, Gov. Greg Abbott blasted the federal government in a letter. “You are either unaware of or indifferent to, what those ‘pre-construction conditions’ were,” he wrote.
“I will not cede state land to transnational criminal cartels smuggling people, weapons, and drugs,” the letter continued. “Nor will I sit idly by as these threats endanger Texas law enforcement and Texas communities.”
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