Operation Lone Star is a border security initiative launched by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in March 2021 in response to rising border crossings, which he blames on President Joe Biden’s immigration policies.

In May 2021, Abbott issued a disaster declaration — which now covers 53 counties, most of them on or near the border — to give him the authority to deploy the Texas National Guard to the border. The state agencies responsible for running Operation Lone Star are the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Texas Military Department.

How much does this all cost and who’s paying for it?
Operation Lone Star is costing taxpayers $2.5 million every week, according to an analysis by The Texas Tribune, ProPublica and The Marshall Project published in March 2022.....

When Abbott first announced Operation Lone Star, 500 Texas National Guard members were sent to the border, and HB 9 funded a deployment of an additional 1,800 soldiers in September 2021. Later that month, Abbott directed 1,000 DPS personnel and 400 more Texas National Guard members to the border in response to the sudden arrival of 16,000 migrants in Del Rio.

The operation was massively upscaled in November 2021, sending up to 10,000 National Guard members to the border.

The National Guard members are tasked with aiding arrests for border-related crimes, including drug smuggling and human trafficking. However, in a leaked morale survey from January 2022, some said they’re not doing much of anything. Earlier in 2022, about 30 soldiers were dispatched to guard private ranches that already have security as part of Operation Lone Star, which raised questions about how and why the Texas National Guard is being used at the border....

At least four Texas National Guard members tied to Operation Lone Star committed suicide in 2021, the Army Times reported in December of that year. A month later, 13 Texas Democrats sent a letter to Col. Daniel Heape, inspector general of the Texas Military Department, demanding a sweeping investigation into Operation Lone Star and how the mission is impacting the “well-being, morale, and overall readiness of our troops.”