More Texas land available for Trump deportation efforts, land commissioner says
RIO GRANDE CITY, Texas - Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham on Tuesday announced she will allow the incoming Trump administration to lease Texas land to build deportation detention facilities.
The move is an expansion of the state's purchase of a 1,400-acre ranch along the Rio Grande at the Texas-Mexico in Starr County.
A letter sent to President-elect Donald Trump by the Texas General Land Office said the past property owner did not let the state build the wall on the land.
Buckingham made the announcement at the newly-acquired ranch and said other properties were already identified and would be ready on day one of the Trump administration.
The commissioner is calling the project the "Jocelyn Initiative" named for 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray who was found murdered and sexually assaulted in a north Houston creek in June.
Two Venezuelan men who entered the country illegally were charged with Nugarary's murder.
Nungaray's mother, Alexis, and grandmother joined the land commissioner at the Starr County site.
"We're going to do everything in our power to ensure no other parent has to feel the pain that Alexis and Jacqueline are feeling right now," Buckingham said.
Alexis Nungaray reiterated that statement.
"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 Nungaray said.
Buckingham said construction on the border wall at the Starr County ranch was already underway and she expected that one mile of wall would be complete in the next week and the that the section on ranch land would be complete in a matter of weeks.
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