EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) — Tom Homan told Dr. Phil he’s already working on a plan for borderlands the Texas offered the Trump administration’s “border czar.”
Homan, along with Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham, recently appeared on “Dr. Phil Primetime” to discuss Trump’s plans for mass deportations when he takes office in 2025.
The State of Texas had offered Trump 1,400 acres for the construction of deportation facilities in the South Texas county of Starr.
On Tuesday, the Texas General Land Commission announced on Twitter that Homan had accepted the offer by sharing a clip from the “Dr. Phil” show.
Host Phil McGraw notes that Texas has already begun building a border wall along the ranch, which Texas had recently acquired, and he asks Buckingham what she plans for the land.
“We just want to be good partners,” she says. “Texas has been standing in the gap while the Biden Administration has abdicated its duty to protect our border and so our offer was simply this. If we have something that’s of use to you, if there is a way to help get these violent criminals off of our soil who are raping and murdering our sons and daughters then we want to be a part of that.”
Buckingham and the state GLO oversee 13 million acres of land. In a news release, the GLO said that in addition to the 1,400 acres in Starr County, it identified land in El Paso and elsewhere in Texas “for the critical task of deporting violent, criminal illegal immigrants from our country.”
During a news conference on Nov. 26 in Starr County, Buckingham said the initiative to use Texas-owned land for detention and deportation staging facilities would be named after Jocelyn Nungaray, a 12-year-old girl from Houston who was killed in June, allegedly by two men from Venezuela who were in the country illegally and purported members of the notorious Tren de Aragua prison gang.
Since Trump won re-election, elected officials at all levels of government have been putting out proposals to either help or block him from carrying out his plans for mass deportations.
On Tuesday, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors approved a policy and resolution that would prevent the use of county resources to help Immigration and Customs Enforcement with deportations.
In a 3-1 vote in favor of the measure, the county agreed to restrict the use of its jails, county buildings and personnel to help federal agents with immigration enforcement.
“San Diego County has always been a place where communities are valued, not divided and as a County Supervisor, I’m committed to leading a local government that promotes unity, equity, and justice for all, while upholding the law,” said County Chairwoman Nora Vargas. “We will not allow our local resources to be used for actions that separate families, harm community trust, or divert critical local resources away from addressing our most pressing challenges. Immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility, and our County will not be a tool for policies that hurt our residents.”
Much like a board policy adopted by Santa Clara County, California, in 2019, San Diego County’s new policy says, “the county shall not provide assistance or cooperation to ICE in its civil immigration enforcement efforts, including by giving ICE agents access to individuals or allowing them to use county facilities for investigative interviews or other purposes, expending county time or resources responding to ICE inquiries or communicating with ICE regarding individuals’ incarceration status or release dates, or otherwise participating in any civil immigration enforcement activities.”
Republican County Supervisor Jim Desmond, who voted against the measure, called the vote “an affront to every law-abiding citizen.”
“This reckless measure not only goes far beyond California’s already extreme sanctuary state laws, but actively endangers our communities by shielding illegal immigrant criminals from deportation,” Desmond said.
Still, the incoming Trump administration appears to be getting more support than pushback with more states proposing laws that would give local law the right to arrest immigrants and force local governments to cooperate with ICE.
Most recently, state lawmakers in Missouri filed bills that would create the new state crime of “improper entry by an alien,” and another that would offer a $1,000 reward to informants who tip off police about people in the country illegally. According to the Associated Press, the latter would allow private bounty hunters to find and detain them.
Border Report correspondents Salvador Rivera and Sandra Sanchez contributed to this report.
