(Bloomberg) -- The Texas Land Commissioner offered 1,402 acres of land in Starr County to be used to construct deportation facilities for the US, an early indicator of how the state will seek to help President-elect Donald Trump carry out his promised mass crackdown against undocumented immigrants.
Commissioner Dawn Buckingham wrote to Trump that she bought the land last month and that it’s located along the US-Mexico border near Rio Grande City. The parcel is almost twice the size of New York City’s Central Park.
“My office is fully prepared to enter into an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or the United States Border Patrol to allow a facility to be built for the processing, detention, and coordination of the largest deportation of violent criminals in the nation’s history,” she wrote to Trump in a Nov. 19 letter sent to his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.
Trump campaigned on a pledge to secure the US-Mexico border by completing construction of a wall and through mass deportations. Immigration became one of the flashpoints of the 2024 election after Texas Governor Greg Abbott bused thousands of migrants from the Lone Star state to Democrat-run cities including New York and Chicago, which then struggled financially and logistically to handle the influx.
Republicans also highlighted Vice President Kamala Harris’ role overseeing aspects of immigration during President Joe Biden’s administration.
Trump has selected South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem to lead the Department of Homeland Security and Tom Homan, the former acting head of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, to be his border czar. The incoming administration’s deportation plans are expected to start by targeting the more than 1 million people in the US who have no legal basis to stay in the country, either because they’ve committed crimes or exhausted appeals. Any effort will require significant funding and face logistical hurdles.
Buckingham said 24 hours after purchasing the property, she granted an easement to allow a border wall to be built. The prior owner had “refused to allow the wall to be built and actively blocked law enforcement from accessing the property,” she said.
(Updates with Texas governor role in election in third paragraph.)
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