Abbott Slashes Fentanyl Seizure Count
Amid Unsubstantiated Migrant Claims

Capitol Inside
July 30, 2022

Governor Greg Abbott reported on Saturday that the border security mission Operation Lone Star has seized 325 million lethal doses of the dangerous opioid fentanyl - a sum that's 19 million lower than the amount he claimed to have been confiscated by the state almost three months ago.

While the Republican governor may choose to ignore the discrepancy, he faces the challenge now if he wants to set the record straight of trying to determine which of the two conflicting numbers on fentanyl busts is correct and which is wrong.

Despite the 6 percent plunge in fentanyl seizures, Abbott said in a Twitter post that Operation Lone Star has recorded 287,000 migrant apprehensions, a vault of 13,000 in less than three weeks. The governor also announced that the state and military program at the Rio Grande had culminated in 17,700 criminal arrests, which represents an increase of 800 since his last statistical update on July 10.

Abbott - in typical fashion - offered no evidence to support any of the numbers that he rolled out this weekend amid an ever-increasing reliance on Operation Lone Star posts on social media in the aftermath of a mass school shooting in Uvalde that's relegated border security to the back page for the past two months.

Abbott, who faces Democrat Beto O'Rourke, sought to showcase the state's war on fentanyl in a tweet on May 10 with the substantially higher confiscation number than his count today.

"Operation Lone Star has seized over 344M lethal doses of fentanyl," Abbott tweeted then. "Enough to kill every American. This crisis isn't unique to our state, it's plaguing the country. Texas is committed to stopping the flow of drugs from coming into our country in the wake of Biden's inaction."

While the decrease in fentanyl seizures could be attributed to an accounting error or typo, whatever the true amount may be, it's arguably irrelevant in light of the fact that Abbott's assertions on the drug in the past have been discredited.

Abbott said in a tweet on July 10 that Operation Lone Star had accounted for 274,000 migrant apprehensions since its conception in March 2020. The mission was formally announced in March 2021. With a 13,000 increase in the latest apprehensions tally update, Abbott's count is dramatically higher than the number that the Department of Public Safety has claimed in the same span of time on social media.

The DPS twitter page on Saturday contained two posts from the past three weeks that show a total of 41 apprehensions in two separate human smuggling disruptions. It's possible that Abbott is giving the state credit for apprehensions that the U.S. Border Patrol has made in Texas - with or without assistance from the DPS or the Texas National Guard or both.

more to come ...