State takes control of Eagle Pass public park
The state has taken control of a public park along the Texas border that was the center of Gov. Greg Abbott’s migrant crackdown last summer, putting up fencing to keep out residents without permission from the city of Eagle Pass, according to its mayor.
Mayor Rolando Salinas said in video posted on Facebook that the Department of Public Safety informed him Wednesday that it was taking over the park under an emergency declaration signed by the governor, following a climb last month in the number of migrants crossing into Eagle Pass from Mexico. Salinas said the move came as a surprise and that the city did not agree to the seizing of city-owned property.
“This is not something that we wanted,” Salinas said. “This is not something that we asked for as a city. I want to make that clear.”
The video, from Wednesday night, showed two military vehicles and newly erected fencing blocking the entrance to the park, a place where locals flock to play soccer, hold riverside picnics and launch boats into the Rio Grande. Salinas said state officials told him the state was taking control of the park “indefinitely.”
The governor’s office did not directly address questions about the move, pointing instead to a border-related disaster declaration signed by the governor in 2021. A spokeswoman for the governor said the declaration was renewed last month and there are no new declarations.
“Texas is holding the line at our southern border with miles of additional razor wire and anticlimb barriers to deter and repel the record-high levels of illegal immigration invited by President Biden’s reckless open border policies,” Abbott spokeswoman Renae Eze said. “Texas will continue to deploy Texas National Guard soldiers, DPS troopers, and more barriers, utilizing every tool and strategy to respond to President Biden’s ongoing border crisis.”
DPS, which did not immediately respond to a request for more information, previously has argued that the governor’s declaration allows the agency to use even private property without the owner’s permission, such as when the agency last year refused to remove razor wire from a nearby pecan farm at the urging of the owner.
The move comes after thousands of migrants crossed into Eagle Pass last month, leading the Biden administration to close an international bridge and railroad crossing leading to the city, both of which have since been reopened. U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales, a San Antonio Republican who represents Eagle Pass and led a congressional delegation including House Speaker Mike Johnson on a trip there last week, said as many as 12,000 migrants had crossed into the city in December, overwhelming Border Patrol.
Crossings have since dropped, but Salinas said he was told the move was to prevent another mass crossing.
“They say their mission is to prevent another mass, mass amount of people from crossing,” Salinas said. “So now they have this operation.”
The park takeover appears to be the latest escalation of Operation Lone Star, the multibilliondollar border security initiative that upended the small border town last year.
State officials last summer strung miles of razor wire and lined shipping containers along the Rio Grande through the park, where they arrested thousands of migrants there under an agreement with the mayor. That agreement was later rescinded under pressure from residents who opposed what they saw as a militarization of the public park.
But still, residents were allowed access to much of the public land there until now.
“They will be denying access,” Salinas said. “Again, this is not the city of Eagle Pass denying access to the park. This is the state using that emergency declaration.”