Texas frees border island from criminal cartel activity

Just a year after Texas declared Fronton Island state property, Texas police conducted Operation Lone Star to rid the area of ​​Mexican cartels above the 170-acre island.

Will Biagini tells the story on Texas Scorecard.

Texas has successfully curbed the presence of cartels and criminal activity on an uninhabited border island after declaring it state property last year.

Fronton Island – located in Starr County and nestled in the Rio Grande – was once a hot spot for cartel activity. As part of Operation Lone Star, Texas police cleared the scene.

Texas Department of Public Safety spokesman Chris Olivarez said that thanks to the joint efforts of the General Land Office, Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham, Texas DPS and the Texas National Guard, human trafficking and other criminal enterprises that once flourished on the island have been brought to an end. an abrupt stop.

“The 170-hectare island had for decades been a base for the Mexican cartels to carry out their criminal activities – human and drug smuggling,” Olivarez said on X. Now that activity is virtually non-existent.

Texas declared the island state property last year. Since then, the Texas National Guard and DPS have been patrolling the land near the town of Roma.

“A year later, there has been no activity at all on this side of the island,” Olivarez told KRGV. “There are still cartel shootings happening on the Mexican side.”

Earlier this month, the federal government demanded that Texas restore the island to the state before the state militarized it. The Biden-Harris administration alleged that Texas was encroaching on federal land while managing the island’s “cleanup” and facilitating security.

In response, Governor Greg Abbott criticized the federal government in a letter. “You are either unaware or indifferent to what those ‘pre-construction conditions’ were,” he wrote.

“I will not cede state lands to transnational criminal cartels that traffic people, weapons and drugs,” the letter continued. “Nor will I stand idly by while these threats endanger Texas law enforcement and Texas communities.”

Article posted with permission from Sons of Liberty Media