East Texas County 400 Miles from Border Declares Migrant-Crisis Disaster

Nearly 200 residents of rural San Jacinto County, Texas, watched as the commissioners’ court declared a border-crisis state of disaster. Following a mass murder and cartel-connected marijuana grow house bust, county residents had seen firsthand, the impact of the border crisis on their community.

San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers read the proposed Declaration of Local State of Disaster (attached below) to the San Jacinto County Commissioners’ Court and the citizens of the county gathered to support the measure. The declaration will allow the county to apply for state funding under Governor Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star border security mission.

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“We will be able to place deputies on the roads in an overtime capacity at no cost to the citizens of this county to help slow the drug flow,” the East Texas sheriff told commissioners. “We will move from a reactive position to a proactive position.”

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In an interview following the declaration’s passage, Sheriff Capers told Breitbart Texas his residents have seen firsthand, the impact of the massive surge of drug and human smuggling on this East Texas community located about 400 miles inland from the Texas-Mexico border. In late April, a four-time deported Mexican national opened fire on his Honduran migrant neighbors leaving five people, including a child, dead, Breitbart Texas reported. A few days later, Capers and his deputies raided a large marijuana grow operation that yielded nearly 160 plants. Deputies found the grow house during a manhunt for the alleged mass killer.

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