A top Texas official is pledging even more land than originally offered for President-elect Donald Trump to use for his massive, nationwide deportation plan.
Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham on Tuesday announced that her office is identifying additional land for the upcoming administration to use when it assumes office in January. Billed as the “Jocelyn Initiative” in honor of the 12-year-old Houston girl who was allegedly killed by two illegal migrants, the project aims to provide Trump a staging area for his immigration detention and deportation agenda.
“We will locate appropriate land under my jurisdiction to lease for the construction of violent criminal deportation facilities,” Buckingham said about the initiative. “My office has identified several of our properties and is standing by ready to make this happen on day one of the Trump presidency.”
The Texas Land Commissioner spoke alongside Alexis Nungaray, Jocelyn’s mother. Jocelyn was allegedly raped and murdered in June by two Venezuelan illegal migrants who tied her up and gagged her, with authorities finding her body naked from the waist down. Her death — along with other high-profile murders like Laken Riley and Rachel Morin — have highlighted the issue of illegal migrant crime in the U.S.
“My goal is to get justice for Jocelyn, but to make a change for every child in this state, in this nation, to not have any more families go through what me and my family are going through,” Alexis said at the press event.
A week earlier, Buckingham publicly offered Trump roughly 1,400 acres of land in Starr County for the construction of deportation facilities. The plot of land, just miles away from the U.S.-Mexico border, would provide a convenient staging ground for the administration’s planned removal operation.
The offer comes as a far cry from the growing number of Democratic governors and mayors who are declaring they will oppose Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda.
The governors of Illinois, Massachusetts, California and Arizona have publicly declared they will not allow their law enforcement to cooperate in any upcoming federal immigration enforcement efforts. The mayor of Boston has made similar comments. The Los Angeles government has successfully fast-tracked sanctuary city legislation to prepare for Trump’s second term at the White House. The mayor of Denver has suggested his city would forcibly resist deportation officers.
The Trump transition team, in the meantime, has maintained that the president-elect will carry out what he has promised.
“President Trump will marshal every federal and state power necessary to institute the largest deportation operation of illegal criminals, drug dealers, and human traffickers in American history while simultaneously lowering costs for families,” Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“He will deliver,” Leavitt said.
Featured Image Credit: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from Washington D.C, United States
