Camp Eagle in Maverick County was completed in three months by private contractor, Team Housing Solutions, with Operation Lone Star (OLS) funds in May 2024. The entire facility is portable – modular housing, storage units, dining halls, gyms, all owned by the contractor. The state pays $14M a month for these amenities.
On April 7, 2025, IWC members Rebecca Flores, Yvonne Dilling, and Terry Villasenor, were joined by students from Trinity University, and others from Eagle Pass and Piedras Negra, Mexico to see first-hand how Operation Lone Star was impacting the area.
On the first Monday of each month, at dusk, Alicia Garcia Grewal and other residents of Eagle Pass in Maverick County gather at Shelby Park, on the edge of the Rio Grande, to raise up their prayers for immigrants. Grewal was their guide on this trip.
Photos of Eagle Pass have been used by politicians to show support for stronger border security. What they don’t show are the bodies of the dead immigrants who drown or die in the desert-like unpopulated areas of the county.
Our first stop was in Uvalde, Texas at the shrine/memorial for the 19 children and two adults who were massacred on May 24, 2022, on their last day of the school year at Robb Elementary. Uvalde’s schools had been locked down 52 times in the month prior to the shooting. Lockdowns occur when high-speed chases driven by Texas Department of Public Safety officers chase cars with undocumented people. This is a product of Operation Lone Star. The constant lockdowns caused by DPS officers’ chases were blamed for the slow reaction to the shooting at Robb Elementary.
Our next stop was at a refrigerated steel trailer, known as the “morgue,” in Maverick County where bodies of immigrants are stored while attempts at identification are made. These are the countless bodies of migrants found in the Rio Grande and in the areas surrounding Maverick County. It sits next to a large building that operates as a dispatch center for National Guard, Sheriffs, and other units at places along the river to keep migrants from crossing. There are no forensic scientists in Maverick County, so volunteers have begun to learn how to begin the identification process. While we were standing around this refrigerated “morgue” we could smell the decayed bodies of the migrants.
Eagle Pass is a town of 28,000 people. Shelby Park which faces the Rio Grande, served as a park where residents came out to picnic, play ball, go fishing, celebrate birthdays, etc. Since the funding in 2021 of Operation Lone Star, Shelby Park was converted into a militarized zone that is inaccessible to the community. It serves as a 24/7 lookout by military soldiers who stand armed watch and patrol on top of shipping containers that sit behind rolls of concertina wire (120 miles of this wire has been installed.) and fences. Other armed soldiers patrol the Rio Grande on motorized boats.
Orange colored buoys are strung out along the river edge. The buoys are connected to form a barricade about 1,000 feet long. They are fastened to the river bottom and have nets below the water to prevent people from swimming beneath them. The buoys themselves rotate so that people can’t climb over them.
Within a three-year period, the Texas Military Department has spent $11 million to place 70,000 rolls of concertina wire in different parts of the border, most notably in Eagle Pass, seriously injuring migrants. About 29 miles of wire have been rolled out in Maverick County. The company that sells these proudly lists their Features: Easy to Install; high quality steel and very sharp, designed to be weather resistant, doesn’t rust easily and provides life-long service and is made in the USA.
Construction of the wall costs $25 million a mile. Only 50 miles have been built which are not contiguous. It has gone up in bits and pieces spread across at least six counties on Texas’ 1,254-mile southern border. Progress has been hampered by the state’s struggles to secure land access, one of myriad challenges signaling a long and enormously expensive slog ahead for Gov. Abbott.
As part of OLS, in May 2024, Camp Eagle in Maverick County, funded by OLS, was completed in three months by private contractor, Team Housing Solutions. The entire facility is portable – modular housing, storage units, dining halls, gyms, all owned by the contractor. These portable houses are for soldiers and contractors. They include air conditioning, 24/7 dining facilities, recreational facilities, a movie theater, and Wi-Fi. The state pays $14 million a month for these amenities, while Eagle Pass families struggle with underfunded schools, crumbling roads, and a lack of affordable housing.
Prior to May 2024, OLS brought business to local hotels and restaurants. Now, that $24 million monthly contract funnels money away from mom-and-pop shops to a private corporation. Meanwhile resources vanish from healthcare and education into militarization.
Keep up with news from the San Antonio Immigration Caucus here.
