Forty-five days into President Joe Biden’s first and only term, Governor Greg Abbott announced plans to launch Operation Lone Star (OLS), the latest and most expansive in a long line of Texas border security surges. Just shy of three months later, Abbott signed a declaration of disaster, citing an “ongoing and imminent threat” from migrants crossing into Texas.
This state of disaster has since been continuously renewed, even as border apprehensions have fallen precipitously. Now four years old, the order has lasted even longer than the governor’s COVID-19 declaration, which he let expire in June 2023. In this time, the Texas Legislature has allocated more than $11 billion to fund the sprawling tentacles of the OLS mission, which centers on a massive deployment of state police and soldiers along the border. This legislative session, another $6.5 billion has been initially proposed by House and Senate budget writers.
Using his disaster authority, Abbott has suspended procurement laws that require agencies to competitively bid out major contracts and award them to firms that provide the best value to the state. This has given the main state agencies involved in OLS—the Department of Public Safety (DPS), the Military Department (TMD), and the Division of Emergency Management (TDEM)—a free hand to dole out huge sums of money to private contractors and vendors through no-bid contracts and emergency purchase orders.
