As President Trump deploys hundreds of additional federal troops to the southern border, where he says "America's sovereignty is under attack," questions remain about what exactly what those troops will spend their time doing.
Tom Homan, who's overseeing the Administration's border enforcement effort, provided a possible clue during a November visit to Eagle Pass, Texas. He referred to Operation Lone Star, Texas Governor Greg Abbott's ongoing deployment of National Guard troops at the border.
"Governor Abbott has done an amazing job. Illegal immigration in Texas is down 86 percent," Homan said. “This is a model we can take across the country."
While Texas has seen a big decrease in immigrant crossings and encounters since Operation Lone Star began in 2021, so have other border states without similar operations.
The Texas National Guard deployment has involved more than 10,000 troops, who work with officers from the U.S. Border Patrol and Texas Department of Public Safety. But federal law restricts what service members can do on U.S. soil. They can assist civilian law enforcement, but can't confront or arrest people.
One Texas National Guardsman, who is deployed to Operation Lone Star in the Rio Grande valley, said the law has been applied inconsistently.
"Here in the Valley, we actually get to work with Border Patrol and DPS to help apprehend them, help find these people that are hiding," said the soldier, who requested his name be withheld because he fears retaliation. "But in Eagle Pass where media was very, very big, we couldn't even yell at these guys. We couldn't touch them. We were just going to let them cross."
President Trump has asked military leaders to prepare a revised plan for securing the border. An executive order he signed calls the crossings at the border "an invasion," which might suggest a shift in how the military is used.
Though troops are unable to act as law enforcement under the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, experts say Trump could get around that by enacting the Insurrection Act. It allows the military to assist overwhelmed civilian authorities.
"It is not yet entirely clear what the new presidential administration's intentions are with respect to using the military at the southern border," said Joseph Nunn of the Brennan Center's Liberty and National Security Program. "It is clear that there is a plan to use the military for border security and immigration enforcement and to do so more expansively than the last administration did."
Among the other questions is what will become of Operation Lone Star. The Texas operation is state-funded, and since its launch, Abbott has spent roughly $11 billion on the mission, about $6 billion of that on mobilizing troops.
Nunn doesn't see how the governor can keep doing that.
"I don't think it's likely that Operation Lone Star will continue in state active duty status, simply because it is so expensive," Nunn said. "Also because of the hardship it imposes on the members of Texas National Guard, who while they're participating in it are pulled away from their families and their civilian jobs."
Abbott has suggested he's interested in winding down the state operation. He also sent a letter to Congress after Trump was sworn into office, asking the federal government to pay back the $11 billion to Texas - saying it was the federal government's job to secure the border.
Abbott has said he'll give the money back to Texans by lowering property taxes and putting more money towards education.
"Texas taxpayers are spending really incredible amounts of money on immigration enforcement," said University of Texas professor Denise Gilman. "That money could be put to many other uses, such as education and emergency preparedness, given all of the natural disasters that we're seeing across the country."
For now, Operation Lone Star shows no signs of going away. Abbott just sent 400 more Texas guardsmen to the border. And state legislative leaders have proposed putting another $6 billion toward the operation in the next state budget.
This story was produced by the American Homefront Project, a public media collaboration that reports on American military life and veterans.
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