As reporters investigated Gov. Greg Abbott’s border initiative, they repeatedly found situations in which Abbott and Department of Public Safety officials cited accomplishments that lacked crucial context or did not match reality. Here are a few examples.
Lomi Kriel
Lomi Kriel is a statewide investigative reporter for The Texas Tribune. Previously, she was a founding member of the Tribune’s investigative unit with ProPublica, joining the initiative in 2020 before leaving for the Tribune in November 2025. Before joining ProPublica, Kriel reported on immigration for the Houston Chronicle, often focused on the Texas border. Months before Trump’s first administration announced its family separation policy, Kriel uncovered it in 2017. Kriel is a two-time Pulitzer finalist, in 2018 as part of the Houston Chronicle’s Hurricane Harvey coverage, and in 2024 for the Tribune’s reporting with ProPublica and FRONTLINE PBS on the Uvalde school shooting. She is a George Polk Award winner, National Magazine Award winner, Edward R. Murrow winner, and Emmy nominee, among other accolades. Kriel, who was born and raised in South Africa, immigrated to the United States in 1998. She has worked as a Central American correspondent for Thomson Reuters and a criminal justice reporter for the San Antonio Express-News, among other publications. Kriel is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and Columbia University and speaks Afrikaans and Spanish.
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The Texas Tribune-ProPublica Investigative Unit
Texas has spent billions of dollars on border security. But what taxpayers got in return is a mystery.
Since 2005, Texas Govs. Rick Perry and Greg Abbott have launched a multitude of widely publicized and costly border initiatives, which usually kicked off during their reelection campaigns or while they were considering bids for higher office.
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Operation Lone Star
Gov. Greg Abbott brags about his border initiative. The evidence doesn’t back him up.
Arrests of U.S. citizens hundreds of miles from the border. Claiming drug busts from across the state. Changing statistics. The data that Texas leaders use to boast about Operation Lone Star raise more questions than answers.
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Politics
Russia’s arrest of Brittney Griner, WNBA basketball star from Houston, adds to escalating global conflict
The athlete, who is Black and gay, was detained by Putin’s regime, which has stoked nationalism and homophobia and is admired by some in America’s far right.
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Higher Education
UT begins $6 billion fundraising campaign, biggest ever among Texas universities
About $1 billion will go to support students, as the cost of living in Austin skyrockets.
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Texas Abortion Restrictions
Texas abortion law challenge heads to state’s supreme court, likely adding more delays to case
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision means it could take months before abortion providers’ challenge to the restrictive law returns to a federal court.
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Politics
Biden administration speeds up deportation flights for Haitians in growing Texas migrant camp
The situation in Del Rio spiraled this week as more than 15,000 migrants, many of them from Haiti, arrived at the border in recent days, settling in a makeshift camp as they waited for CBP agents to process their petitions to stay in the U.S.
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Operation Lone Star
Converted Texas prison gets first immigrant detainees as Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security effort ramps up
Border-crossing immigrants are being arrested by Texas troopers on state charges like trespassing, and they’re starting to trickle into a prison emptied to house them.
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The Texas Tribune-ProPublica Investigative Unit
How inconsistent policies and enforcement have created false hope for migrants at the border
The Biden administration and the Mexican government have made the situation at the border so confusing that even seasoned experts can’t always determine who is allowed in and who isn’t. That may be contributing to the high number of border crossings.
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The Texas Tribune-ProPublica Investigative Unit
The people we left behind: How closing a dangerous border camp adds to inequities
The Biden administration shuttered a migrant tent camp in Mexico that was created under a Trump policy. Immigration advocates praised the move, but the closure adds to growing confusion over which migrants are let in or left out.
