Following months of criticism and damning news reports, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced he’s replacing the state military’s top official — a figure central to Abbott’s botched immigration crackdown known as Operation Lone Star.
Abbott said Monday that the Texas Military Department is moving on from Maj. Gen. Tracy Norris, whom he appointed to lead the Texas National Guard in 2019. She led Operation Lone Star, a mission beset with a bevy of problems, since its launch in March 2021.
Norris will be replaced by Maj. Gen. Thomas Suelzer, the deputy adjutant general for the state’s Air National Guard, Abbott announced.
Beto O’Rourke, Abbott’s Democratic challenger in this year’s general election, used the personnel switch to point out the operation’s failures.
You can switch Generals, but we know where the buck stops.
— Beto O'Rourke (@BetoORourke) March 14, 2022
Abbott took 10,000 Guard members from their jobs and families, treated them with incredible disrespect. Pay delayed. Tuition benefits cut in half. Used as political pawns in his campaign.
Time to bring them back home. https://t.co/weFHJyyruc
As Abbott said in a statement Monday, Norris’ time carrying out Operation Lone Star was indeed “exceptional.” But for all the wrong reasons.
Many Texas National Guard service members assigned to the operation came to recognize it as a disaster plagued by a spate of troop suicides, failure to pay troops, equipment shortages and a belief among some troops that they were hastily assigned to an involuntary mission that left them with little to do.
In a Texas Tribune article in January, several troops detailed their pay issues, their anger over poor living conditions, their irritation over the operation’s haphazard planning, and their frustration over the little time they were given to prepare before being sent to the U.S.-Mexico border.
The report followed an Army Times article that highlighted a wave of troop suicides at the end of last year. The article noted many who were assigned to the operation felt they were being used as political props. And those claims haven’t subsided. Abbott ramped up troop deployments for Operation Lone Star in September, as he was facing a fierce primary challenge and staunch criticism from fellow Republican opponents.
As a governor endorsed by former President Donald Trump, Abbott has tried to make himself in Trump’s image, pursuing Trump-inspired goals like an audit of the 2020 election and the construction of a border wall.
Operation Lone Star finds Abbott embracing another Trumpian habit: misusing public servants in the name of political gain.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.