EAGLE PASS, Texas — When former President Donald Trump visited ground zero of the monumental scuffle between Texas and the Biden administration, state officials revealed illegal crossings in the area shrunk by a seismic 99% virtually overnight.
The Washington Examiner obtained Friday a copy of the 11-page report titled “DJT Brief” that relayed to Trump the major achievement during his visit to Eagle Pass on Thursday afternoon.
The briefing document. which was presented as PowerPoint slides to Trump, shows that during the height of the surge of illegal immigrants in Eagle Pass in December 2023, upward of 4,000 people illegally crossed per day and were arrested by Border Patrol.
On Jan. 11, when the state took over a 2 1/2-mile stretch of the border that included the park, National Guard soldiers ratcheted up barricades on the border and installed immeasurable amounts of concertina wire up and down the area. At 6:30 a.m. that morning, the state sealed off the park from all federal employees over concerns that Border Patrol agents were cutting through their wire to rescue and arrest immigrants trapped in it, only to later release them into the United States.
The “DJT Brief” backed up claims that Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) made during remarks at the visit Thursday in which he stated that locking down Eagle Pass had a huge impact on curtailing illegal immigration in the region.
After taking over the city grounds, state authorities apprehended a total of 381 immigrants at Shelby Park that month, an average of 18 arrests per day compared to more than 4,000 arrests per day at the height of the surge.
“We are taking a proactive approach to a surge of illegal border crossings like we saw in December and to prevent any type of crossing from taking place under the bridge,” said Lt. Chris Olivarez, spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety’s South Texas Region, during a phone call Friday.
That decline has continued into February, officials told Trump. In the first 3 1/2 weeks of last month, Texas National Guard soldiers stationed at the park apprehended an average of eight illegal immigrants per day.
The state’s effort to make walking through the river and into downtown Eagle Pass has pushed some immigrants to attempt to cross upstream or downstream. However, Olivarez said apprehensions of illegal immigrants in other parts of Eagle Pass were also down 70% since Jan. 11.
“This is an incredible operation,” Trump said Thursday during brief remarks at Shelby Park. “You’re in a war.”
Crossings in areas outside of downtown are handled largely by Texas DPS, whose officers engage in vehicle pursuits once human smugglers pick up immigrants.
Border Patrol agents who have been locked out of the park for six weeks also work with the DPS in the field and take custody of illegal immigrants if the state does not prosecute them on criminal trespassing charges.
A Washington Examiner analysis of federal government data compiled by U.S. Customs and Border Protection concluded that the majority of illegal immigrants arrested on the southern border had shifted from Texas to California and Arizona after Abbott hired former Border Patrol official Mike Banks as the state’s border czar in January 2023.
Since Banks joined Abbott’s advisers, the state has bolstered its Operation Lone Star border security initiative, which was launched in 2021. Texas has increasingly focused on deploying concertina wire to Eagle Pass and other hard-hit parts of the border, moved forward on border wall projects, and began placing anti-climb panels in other areas over the past two years.
After touring the park Thursday, Trump said the state’s response was akin to a “military operation.”
The state’s decision to seize city land and shut out federal authorities has affected a Supreme Court decree that Border Patrol take down the concertina wire on the border. Federal agents are not allowed onto the land where the wire has been installed; therefore, they have not been able to cut it down despite the court’s permission to do so.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) said on Fox Business Network Friday that President Joe Biden ought to be asked why, if he is sincere about wanting to end the border crisis, he is suing Abbott for taking action.
“Why is Joe Biden suing the governor of Texas right now when Abbot put up the razor wire to at least try to stop the flow of illegals coming into the state of Texas?” Scalise said. “Right now, Joe Biden’s in court to take the razor wire down because Joe Biden wants more illegals coming into the country.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked during a press briefing Friday afternoon why the Biden administration had not followed through and regained access to Shelby Park in Eagle Pass and taken down the wire.
“You have to, to speak to the department of — DHS, obviously,” Jean-Pierre said. “I just don’t have anything for you on that. And we’re very clear about what we thought about those wires. Obviously, [the Department of Justice] took action. I just don’t have anything on the timeline on those coming down.”
DHS and the White House did not respond to requests for comment about why the federal government has not followed up on its mid-January threat to sue Texas if it did not reopen the park to federal authorities by Jan. 24 or if it has allowed the wire to remain up because it recognizes how effective it has been at deterring illegal immigrants.
Another Texas initiative, the floating buoys in the Rio Grande, was launched last summer. Officials in the Trump administration told NBC News they had first conceived the idea that was later implemented by the Abbott administration.
The nearly $1 million buoy project has deterred immigrants from wading across a shallow area of the Rio Grande, but their entrance into the water last July also infuriated groups on the Left.
The Justice Department filed a lawsuit against Abbott that ordered the state to take down the floating barrier in Eagle Pass because it posed “threats to navigation and public safety and presents humanitarian concerns.”
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Since being sued in July, Abbott has refused to take down floating barriers in the Rio Grande in direct defiance of the Biden administration’s order to remove the buoys. A federal appeals court in December sided with a federal district judge who said the buoys must be removed, but that decision was vacated in January until the case can be reheard in May, allowing the buoys to remain up.
The Interior Department’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced on the same day that it would declare endangered a mussel species that could be found in the water below the buoys. A House Republican said the move was nothing more than a “shell game” to interfere with state border operations.
