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Texas buys border properties to continue security and conservation efforts

Texas buys border properties to continue security and conservation efforts

The State of Texas has acquired additional facilities along the Texas-Mexico border to continue border security and enforcement efforts.

The Texas General Land Office has acquired a 1,402-acre ranch in Starr County that backs up to the Rio Grande River, making it a “crucial location for increased border security and the placement of a border wall,” the GLO said in a statement.

The GLO also approved an easement to allow the Texas Facilities Commission to begin the process of building 1.5 miles of border wall on the property. The TFC began overseeing the state’s border wall construction process in June 2023, when Governor Greg Abbott first announced that Texas would build its own wall. So far, Texas has built more than 30 miles of steel wall, becoming the first and only state to do so.

The Star County ranch currently grows row crops of onions, canola, sunflowers, grain sorghum, corn, cotton and soybeans. According to the state’s oldest agency, it will continue to grow grains under the GLO.

Starr County falls under the US Customs and Border Protection Sector Rio Grande Valley. The sector overall reports the highest number of illegal border crossers in Texas. During the Biden-Harris administration, the number of illegal crossings reached an all-time high. Apprehensions have dropped significantly in the sector and in Texas since Gov. Greg Abbott expanded his border enforcement mission to Operation Lone Star more than a year ago, The Center Square reported.

With the acquisition of this ranch, GLO now owns two tracts of land in Starr County covering over 4,000 acres. Last year, GLO acquired 170 acres on Fronton Island in the Rio Grande Valley, allowing OLS to expand operations there to discourage cartel activity, The Center Square reported.

In far west Texas, GLO also acquired the largest privately owned ranch in Texas, the Brewster Ranch, which consists of 28 historic ranches in Texas’ largest county, Brewster. The property covers more than 350,000 acres and 552 square miles and borders Big Bend National Park, Black Gap Wildlife Management Area and the wild and scenic Rio Grande River.

The first land report details published about sale; ranch owned by Texas Mountain Holdings and Brad Kelly, a Kentucky native and the largest private landowner in Texas for sale. Brewster Ranch previously sold for more than $245 million, according to the report.

“The purchase of Brewster Ranch by the Texas General Land Office is considered one of the most significant public land purchases in Texas history. This is a great day for our state and a demonstration that Texas is investing in Texas,” said James King, a representative for King Land & Water in Fort Davis, according to the Land Report.

The property is located in CBP’s Big Bend sector, which during the Biden-Harris administration reported the highest number of illegal border crossings in history. This is the largest southwestern border sector, the least manned and least populated. The region is extremely remote with dangerous terrain and unsuitable for building a border wall. Almost all of the arrests in the sector involve single men of draft age and human and drug smugglers, The Center Square reports.

Neighboring Terrell County, also in the Big Bend sector, was one of the first Texas counties to declare an invasion on July 5, 2022, after an unprecedented number of illegal border crossers and smugglers wreaked havoc on the small county. After repeated break-ins and high-speed car chases that caused schools to be closed and ranchers continued to find dead bodies, a county judge declared an invasion. Always a Democrat, she also switched parties, becoming a Republican and blaming the border policies of the Biden-Harris administration, The Center Square reported. She also started a trend of other South Texas Democrats and lifelong border Democrats leaving the party, also citing the border crisis, The Center Square reported. Texas Democrats, including Democratic border sheriffs, also backed Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, citing the border crisis.

According to the GLO, the state will manage the Brewster Ranch property not only for border security, but also for conservation. This includes “many types of leasing options available, including but not limited to hunting, agriculture, minerals and soil carbon sequestration,” The Texas Standard, part of the University of Texas at Austin, reported.

Current status struggling the Biden-Harris administration on conservation claims, including protecting freshwater mussels in Central Texas and on the border in the Big Bend region. Last August, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed listing two freshwater mussel species as endangered in the Big Bend region of Texas. He also proposed designating 200 river miles as critical habitat in areas where OLS is active in the bordering counties of Brewster, Terrell and Val Verde, Central Square reported.

Former Border Patrol Agent and Terrell County Sheriff Ted Cleveland told The Center Square that if the Biden-Harris administration “was really concerned about mussels in the Rio Grande, they would have prevented illegal aliens from crossing. They leave behind garbage, clothes and human waste, which cause much more damage to the environment.”

Instead, he said, their border policies have “dismantled the most secure border the United States has ever had” under the Trump administration.

The GLO is the oldest agency in Texas that manages public lands and historic records, manages the Alamo, manages disaster funds, oversees the Permanent School Fund, provides benefits to Texas veterans, manages the Texas Coast, among other responsibilities.