‘Operation Lone Star’ Struggles at the Texas Border

In late February, a grim morale survey of National Guard troops stationed along the Texas border was leaked to the Texas Tribune. The survey included responses from nearly 250 members of a Texas Air National Guard unit involved in Governor Greg Abbott’s “Operation Lone Star,” a deployment of some 10,000 state troopers and National Guard units to enforce the state border. Its findings — telling of troops’ “frustration, anxiety and anger,” according to the Tribune — were consistent with a number of public indicators of dissatisfaction among border-enforcement officials. On top of a January Texas Standard report detailing “pay delays,...