Border base may cost up to $400M
Eagle Pass facility would house National Guard
Construction has begun on Texas’ military base camp in Eagle Pass, near the Texas-Mexico border, which is expected to house about 1,800 Texas National Guard troops as part of the state’s border security initiative and could cost upward of $400 million by September 2026.
The state in February hired New Braunfels-based Team Housing Solutions to convert a former recreational vehicle park on 80 acres along the Rio Grande to set up living quarters, a dining facility, a gym, an in-ground pool, a library, an armory and other features for the activated Guard troops, according to the purchase order obtained by the American-Statesman.
Gov. Greg Abbott announced plans for the state-operated facility, about 6 miles south of Shelby Park that’s being called the “Forward Operating Base,” during a Feb. 16 media event in Eagle Pass as part of his $11 billion Operation Lone Star border security initiative. That announcement came eight days after the Texas Military Department signed the purchase order to pay Team Housing nearly $131 million to operate the camp through Sept. 7 with options for two extensions — the first through Sept. 7, 2025, and the second through a year later.
Abbott, in a social media post Tuesday, heralded the progress being made at the site.
“Construction is underway on the new Forward Operating Base in Eagle Pass,” Abbott said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that showed aerial footage and graded land with a cluster of parked trailers likely to be used as portable buildings. “This base camp will house Texas National Guard soldiers deployed to respond to Biden’s border crisis. It will also provide our soldiers additional resources and regional support to secure the border.”
The first phase of construction is expected to be completed in about three weeks.
A representative from Team Housing did not respond to several Statesman emails and calls for additional details about the project. But according to a page on its website, the company went to work on short notice to secure the site and to bring in the equipment needed to make the base operational.
The Statesman has filed request under the state’s open government laws for information about the scope and total cost of the project. Under state law, the Military Department has 10 days from the time the request was made to either release the information or to make the case to the Texas attorney general’s office that it should be hidden from public view.
When he announced plans for the camp, Abbott said taxpayers should realize cost savings in the long run because the state will not have to provide temporary housing or cover other deployment costs for the Guard soldiers assigned to Eagle Pass.
“This will increase the ability for a larger number of Texas military department personnel in Eagle Pass to operate more effectively and more efficiently,” Abbott said at the time.
Abbott launched Operation Lone Star in the months after President Joe Biden defeated President Donald Trump in November 2020 and took office that following January. Biden began rolling back many of his predecessor’s hard-line border policies, such as Title 42, a pandemic-era rule that allowed for the quick expulsions of people seeking asylum based on public health concerns.
The Democratic Biden administration and Abbott, a three-term Republican, have clashed politically since then on border security and immigration.
The two sides are locked in ongoing legal battles over the state’s expanded role in seeking to combat unlawful immigration, including a new state law, which the courts have temporarily blocked from taking effect, that would authorize state law enforcement officers to detain, arrest and deport people suspected of entering the U.S. in Texas from Mexico without legal authorization.