Did Texas just give the Trump administration hundreds of thousands of acres on which to build immigrant detention facilities? “Texas just gifted Trump 355,000 acres for deportation camps,” reads a viral Threads post with more than 1,400 likes. “I want you to think about that critically,” says one.
The claim is partly false. The Texas General Land Office (GLO) did offer the incoming administration state land to use for immigration facilities. However, it offered only about 1,400 acres, not 355,000 acres as the post claims.
On November 20, the GLO announced that it had sent a letter to the incoming Trump administration offering state-owned land for use in the administration’s deportation efforts. “I am writing to formally offer 1,402 acres of land in Starr County, Texas, to be used to construct deportation facilities,” Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham wrote in the letter. “My office is fully prepared to enter into an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or the United States Border Patrol to allow a facility to be built for the processing, detention, and coordination of the largest deportation of violent criminals in the nation’s history.”
A representative for the GLO reiterated the information in the office’s press release when asked by The Dispatch Fact Check about the false information. “Commissioner Buckingham is offering the incoming Trump Administration 1,402 acres of land to lease in Starr County for deportation efforts,” the representative wrote.
The Texas GLO acquired the land—a ranch along the southern border in Starr County—in late October. Upon its acquisition, the GLO immediately signed an agreement with the Texas Facilities Commission granting it a 7,681-foot easement along which it could construct a border wall. The same day, the GLO also announced that it had purchased the 353,785-acre Brewster Ranch in Brewster County, adding to the approximately 13 million acres of existing state land owned by Texas. The GLO has not yet disclosed what the land will be used for, but some of it will likely continue to be leased for ranching operations. Though the two ranches are in separate counties and different parts of the state, the combined purchases total approximately 355,000 acres—likely the source of the 355,000-acre figure cited in the post.
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