Abbott Touts Bust that Contradicts
Rhetoric on Border and Fentanyl

Capitol Inside
July 5, 2022

Governor Greg Abbott implied on Tuesday that a narcotics ring disruption last week in the Fort Worth area demonstrates that Texas is winning the war against illegal immigration and drugs.

"The Tarrant County Sheriff's Office announced 15,000 fentanyl pills seized, 11 suspects arrested in North Texas drug bust," Abbott tweeted this afternoon. "Texas is securing our border & keeping deadly fentanyl off our streets."

The Republican governor made no attempt to explain the logic that he employed to draw the conclusion that he made in the second line based on the first sentence of the Twitter post. The amount of fentanyl and the arrest count in the Tarrant raid are relatively minor numbers compared to busts that the U.S. Border Patrol makes several times a week in Texas.

But the confiscation of fentanyl 400 miles or more from the Rio Grande - aside from the sheer quantity - appears to show just the opposite of what Abbott claimed. The Tarrant County bust is incontrovertible evidence that Texas is failing to stop the flow of the dangerous opioid from Mexico into cities across the state.

Abbott could have said that the state is helping take some fentanyl off the streets or reducing its availability in Texas. But the numbers that the governor touted today effectively render the assertion that Texas is keeping the drug off the black market to be false.

The Department of Public Safety sought to fortify Abbott's claims in a separate tweet on Wednesday - declaring that the border security initiative Operation Lone Star has seized record sums of fentanyl. The running Operation Lone Star tally - whether accurate or fabricated - has no credibility in light of the state's steadfast refusal to document or to substantiate apprehensions, arrests and drugs and weapons seizures that Abbott has parroted without proof.

The state's have appeared to be dramatically exaggerated when they're simply not cooked up to create the appearance that the $5 billion program Operation Lone Star has had an impact on illegal border crossings and narcotics smuggling into Texas. The initiative has had a negligible effect if any on migrants and drugs coming to Texas from Mexico.