Colony Ridge Gave Greg Abbott $1.5 Million. Here’s What Greg Abbott Gave Colony Ridge.

When the Trump administration’s deportation raids began in Texas, the epicenter was Colony Ridge.

In the first wave of raids alone, more than 100 illegals — including murder suspects, drug lords, sexual predators, and a confirmed cartel member — were nabbed by authorities in the infamous housing development, which ballooned as illegal immigrants flooded the state. The “fastest growing” development in the country markets cheap land to foreigners, and illegal immigrants took the bait: in an area where there was next to nothing less than a decade ago, there are now as many as 100,000 residents and more than 35,000 properties. Through its aggressive marketing of cheap land in the United States, it was projected to grow to a quarter of a million people.

But the rapid growth of an illegal immigrant haven was not thanks to the marketing strategy alone: A Daily Wire investigation found that in 2018, Colony Ridge’s growth was supercharged by an Opportunity Zone designation awarded by the federal government following a direct plea from Texas Governor Greg Abbott. The Opportunity Zone program aims to spur development of low-income areas by offering investors significant tax breaks, including the deferral of capital gains taxes.

Though Abbott has attempted to distance himself from Colony Ridge after its practices were exposed — his office was an active partner in the federal deportation raids — The Daily Wire found that the governor helped lay the economic groundwork that made the development’s explosive growth possible, and that developers donated to and built a relationship with Abbott as they worked to build Colony Ridge up to its current 34,000-acre footprint.

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At least on paper, the relationship between Abbott and Trey Harris, the lead developer of Colony Ridge, began in 2018. On March 19 of that year, Celeste Harris, the developer’s wife, donated $100,000 to Abbott, according to state campaign finance records. That donation came just two days before the original deadline for states to nominate census tracts for opportunity zone status.

Then on March 21, the day of the deadline, Abbott wrote a letter to the Treasury Department nominating the area surrounding Colony Ridge to be designated a federal Opportunity Zone, according to records obtained by The Daily Wire, which asked Texas to produce all correspondence regarding the designation of the Colony Ridge development as an opportunity zone.

Two weeks later, on April 4, Harris and a local lawmaker named Brandon Creighton were Abbott’s guests for lunch at the governor’s mansion, according to meeting logs obtained through a records request. And just two days after the lunch meeting, on April 6, Abbott penned a second letter to the Treasury Department on the Opportunity Zone request. Four days later, on April 10, he sent a third letter to finalize his nomination of the census tracts to become Qualified Federal Opportunity Zones.

By July 9, 2018, the IRS had designated Colony Ridge and the surrounding land an Opportunity Zone.

Over the next four years, Harris would become one of Abbott’s biggest individual donors. Harris gave his first direct contribution to Abbott on June 25, 2018, around the time of the Opportunity Zone designation, to the tune of $100,000. All told, Trey and Celeste Harris would give $1.5 million to Abbott from 2018 to 2022, making Trey Harris Abbott’s 15th largest individual donor at the time.

As Trey Harris’ donations continued, so did his appearances at the governor’s mansion. On May 18, 2018, Trey Harris attended a “summer kickoff fiesta” at the governor’s mansion. He returned for a widely-attended December 11th, 2018, reception, and a more intimate, six-person dinner on December 4th, 2020, the meeting logs obtained by The Daily Wire show.

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The Daily Wire’s first report on Colony Ridge in September 2023 prompted Abbott to address the development. The governor called two different special sessions of the state legislature and urged lawmakers to consider bills “concerning public safety, security, environmental quality, and property ownership in areas like the Colony Ridge development.”

The special sessions resulted in the passage of legislation that dedicated up to $40 million for state troopers to patrol the development. The crime has not subsided — nearly 350 pounds of meth were recently seized from drug traffickers in the development, and authorities captured an MS-13 member and murder suspect in the development after he led them on a seven-hour manhunt. The El Salvadoran national had been deported from the United States seven times prior to his most recent arrest.

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Colony Ridge has used its Opportunity Zone designation to attract investment. The designation allows investors to receive tax benefits if they maintain capital in an Opportunity Zone fund.

If you reinvest capital gains in an Opportunity Zone and maintain the investment for at least five years, you can exempt a portion of your gains from taxes. The longer you hold the investment, the bigger that portion grows — if you maintain it for a decade, it’s exempt from capital gains taxes altogether.

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