EAGLE PASS, Texas – Texas Gov. Greg Abbott will head to the U.S.-Mexico border for the first time since the presidential election.
On Tuesday, Abbott will greet and serve meals to Texas National Guard soldiers and DPS troopers stationed at Eagle Pass and Edinburg over Thanksgiving, according to the governor’s office. The operating base in Eagle Pass opened in May.
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KSAT will livestream the Eagle Pass event in this article at noon on Tuesday.
The governor will be joined by DPS Director Steven McCraw, Texas Military Department General Thomas Suelzer, National Border Patrol Council Paul Perez, and Tom Homan, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for border czar.
Homan is a former Border Patrol agent who served as the acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement during Trump’s first term in office.
He was “significantly involved” in the separation of children from their parents after they illegally crossed the border, said Lee Gelernt, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, which successfully sued to halt the practice. Parents were criminally prosecuted.
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Homan signaled support for the federal government using a ranch in Starr County for mass deportations.
GLO Commissioner Dawn Buckingham said in a letter that her office is “fully prepared” to enter an agreement with any federal agencies involved in deporting individuals from the country “to allow a facility to be built for the processing, detention, and coordination of the largest deportation of violent criminals in the nation’s history.”
At 10 a.m. Tuesday, the GLO will host a news conference for what it called a “border wall construction kick-off event.” KSAT will livestream that event on KSAT Plus, KSAT.com and KSAT’s YouTube channel.
Trump has promised to stage the largest deportation operation in American history. There are an estimated 11 million people in the country illegally.
Questions remain about how people in a mass raid would be executed and where people would be detained.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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