Texas National Guard member tells lawmakers Operation Lone Star ‘a waste of time’ and ‘money’
The state has so far set aside $4 billion for border security efforts, which include 10,000 Texas National Guard troops that have been surged to the Texas-Mexico border as part of Operation Lone Star, according to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
During an April 5 hearing of the Texas Senate Committee on Border Security, Texas lawmakers were told that funding for Operation Lone Star would run out in May.
Border Report has learned that at its current spending rate, additional funds of half a billion dollars will be required about every three months to sustain the current operation.
Operation Lone Star has been widely criticized and there have been several suicides and deaths by Texas National Guard troops assigned to the border mission. The most recent death was Friday in Eagle Pass, Texas, after a 22-year-old National Guardsman jumped into the Rio Grande to help two migrants, according to the Texas Military Department. His body was found Monday.
During a hearing Wednesday held by the Texas House Committee on Homeland Security and Public Safety, Texas National Guard Staff Sgt. Kiersten Faith of Tomball, Texas, said “this mission has been a complete waste of time,” according to electronic comments she submitted.
Faith said she arrived in October and until mid-December “did absolutely nothing.”
“We had points where we literally sat 5 feet from the highway and could not do anything, we were just there to make ranch owners look good during elections. We are now doing that again except this time we are sitting at a rest stop where we cannot do anything at all. The points we work at see little to no traffic so Texas is literally wasting money having all of us sitting down here,” Faith wrote.