SEATTLE - At least 17 Texas National Guard members have died while deployed at the southern border since 2021, according to state military officials.
The amount of troops that have died in connection to Gov. Abbott's Operation Lone Star was revealed during a hearing last week of the Texas House Committee on Defense and Veterans' Affairs, despite the Texas Military Department keeping a tightlipped approach about troops serving at the border.
Incidents leading to troops dying have varied in their nature. Some deaths reported include one who died from a medical emergency, one who was accidentally shot, while two others died in a traffic accident — one in the accident itself and the other by suicide minutes after the crash. At least four additional soldiers have died by suicide while assigned at the border, according to the report.
When Gov. Abbott launched his Operation Lone Star mission, troop levels deployed at the border peaked the during the first year, reaching roughly 10,000 Texas National Guard members.
Since March 2021, service members have complained about poor living conditions, inadequate training and equipment, problems getting paid and a lack of a sense of mission. These issues have also led to deaths of National Guard members.
In 2022, Spc. Bishop Evans died after jumping into the Rio Grande to save migrants trying to cross the border through the river. Evans jumped into the water without a proper flotation device.
While the lack of proper equipment is just one of the factors that has led to tragedies like Evans' death, troops deployed at the border say they faced an overwhelming amount of problems since they were mobilized. Some of them noted problems with their pay, shortages of critical equipment, precarious living conditions and some said they felt underutilized.
After Evans' death, the state of Texas passed the Bishop Evans Act in 2023. The law created the access to the death benefit, something that was not available for Guard members, as only those on a federal mission could their families would be compensated in case of dying while deployed.
The Bishop Evans Act added Guard members on state missions such as Operation Lone Star to the list of employees eligible to identify as beneficiaries. Guard members can now receive a lump sum payment of $500,000 from the Employees Retirement System.
For those who died on Operation Lone Star before the new bill went into effect, the law provided $2 million to a crime victim compensation fund to support those families.
More than three years into the state-wide mission, the Guard and the governor's office have not said how much longer the border mission will continue or how many troops are assigned to it.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection released statistics last month that showed agents detained 56,400 migrants, the lowest amount since Sept. 2020. Gov. Abbott has credited the drop in border crossings to his operation, which he said has led to the apprehension of more than half a million migrants and 46,000 criminal arrests.
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