Earlier this week, Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham revealed that the GLO has acquired the ranch in Starr County—a border county 105 miles away from Laredo. The area, located in the Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Sector, has seen the highest levels of illegal alien crossings.
Buckingham said that the Texas Facilities Commission—tasked with building the border wall—requested the property. With the purchase of the ranch, the GLO now owns two pieces of land, totaling more than 4,000 acres, in Starr County along the border.
“For too long, the federal government has abdicated its job to secure our southern border – endangering Texans by allowing hundreds of thousands of unvetted illegal migrants to stream across our porous border. This mass negligence and refusal to enforce the law is downright sinister. As Land Commissioner, tasked with overseeing thirteen million acres of state land, I will not idly stand by and let this dereliction of duty affect the lives of hard-working Texans,” said Buckingham.
This is why I am stepping up and acquiring this 1,402-acre property in the heart of the border crisis. The General Land Office works for the people of Texas, and our agency will take matters into our own hands and partner with the State of Texas to secure this section of Starr County by building a fortified 1.5-mile wall.
Buckingham also revealed that state employees have already been out to the property with bulldozers and she believes construction of the wall will begin soon.