The Department of Justice has launched an investigation into Operation Lone Star, a border security mission conducted by the Texas Department of Public Safety in conjunction with the Texas Military Department. The objective of the mission, launched by Governor Greg Abbott in March 2021, is to stem the tide of illegal aliens pouring across the border and combat the smuggling of drugs, weapons, and people into the state.
In mid-May, however, the Federal Coordination and Compliance Section of the DOJ's Civil Rights Division sent a letter to the Texas DPS saying it received information indicating that the state agency "may be discriminating on the basis of race and/or national origin" in its activities related to Operation Lone Star.
According to that letter, DPS is suspected of "targeting certain individuals for arrests for misdemeanor trespass violations and traffic stops based on their perceived or actual race or national origin."
J. Christian Adams is a former Justice Department attorney who is founder and president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation. He argues that the state of Texas is doing what it thinks it needs to do to secure the border.
"Texas is finally saying we're going to do something about it, and we need to follow the law if we're going to be a country based on law," Adams tells AFN. "Having a federal government that doesn't follow the law is corrosive in a lot of ways besides just allowing illegal aliens to flood our country."
The former DOJ attorney predicts "someone is going to blink" as the confrontation plays out.
"And who that someone is is going to depend on a lot of things," he offers. "But somebody's going to blink and back down – and in the past, it's usually [been] Texas. But we'll see if maybe this time it's different."
In April, the governor's office reported that in the 13 months since its launch, Operation Lone Star had led to almost a quarter-million migrant apprehensions, literally thousands of criminal arrests and felony charges, and seizure of more than 3,700 weapons, $30 million in currency, and almost 300 million lethal doses of fentanyl.
