Operation Lone Star Ramps Up Historic Offensive Against Fentanyl Crisis

AUSTIN – Governor Greg Abbott, the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Texas National Guard are continuing to work together to secure the border; stop the smuggling of drugs, weapons, and people into Texas; and prevent, detect, and interdict transnational criminal behavior between ports of entry.

Since the launch of Operation Lone Star, the multi-agency effort has led to over 365,000 illegal immigrant apprehensions and more than 27,000 criminal arrests, with more than 24,000 felony charges reported. In the fight against fentanyl, DPS has seized over 380 million lethal doses of fentanyl during this border mission.

Operation Lone Star continues to fill the dangerous gaps left by the Biden Administration's refusal to secure the border. Every individual who is apprehended or arrested and every ounce of drugs seized would have otherwise made their way into communities across Texas and the nation due to President Joe Biden's open border policies.

Following Governor Abbott’s One Pill Kills Summit in Austin last week, he joined Fox News to discuss the new initiatives Texas is launching to combat the growing national fentanyl crisis and save innocent lives, including a $10 million multimedia awareness initiative and plan to distribute Narcan to all 254 Texas counties. Last year, more than 2,000 lives were lost to fentanyl in Texas—a 500% increase since 2019—as President Biden continues to ignore the human costs of his reckless open border policies.

“So many victims are completely unaware that they are taking pills with fentanyl laced onto them by the Mexican drug cartels,” said Governor Abbott. “There must be a national campaign, because when fentanyl comes across the border, it does not stay in Texas. It goes throughout the entire country, and other states are facing this same problem.”

Abbott on Wednesday announced that DPS seized over 3.1 million lethal doses of fentanyl, or about 14 pounds, during a single Operation Lone Star traffic stop in Mission. This seizure marks one of the largest single fentanyl seizures by the border mission to date.

"Fentanyl is the single greatest drug threat our state and country has ever known, and this record amount of fentanyl seized would have otherwise made its way into communities across Texas and the nation because of President Joe Biden's open border policies," said Governor Abbott. "Through Texas' historic Operation Lone Star mission, a DPS trooper prevented 3.1 million lethal doses of fentanyl—enough to kill every Texan in Austin, Dallas, and El Paso combined—from taking more innocent lives during a single traffic stop.