Less than two months after Biden’s inauguration, Abbott announced that the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) would begin a crackdown on “the smuggling of people and drugs” into his state.

“In an internal email in May,” the Texas Tribune reported, “DPS officials said that the DOJ was seeking to review whether Operation Lone Star violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars discrimination on the basis of race, color or national origin by institutions receiving federal funding.”

A news story from the El Paso Times noted that the deployment of razor wire along 60 miles of the border, meant to deter or block migrants from entering the state, had not been appropriately permitted by the federal government.

The government of Mexico made a diplomatic outreach to the United States to object to Texas’s use of razor wire and Abbott’s announcement that he would float barriers in the Rio Grande.

Abbott was undeterred, signing into law a bill that authorizes spending another $1 billion on border barriers and another that makes it a state crime to illegally cross into Texas from Mexico.

In an appearance on Fox News Thursday morning, Abbott was asked if he would order DPS or other Texas agents to physically block federal officers trying to access the border near Eagle Pass.

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