Texas Governor Wishes Border-Deployed Guardsmen Merry Christmas

Texas Governor Greg Abbott spoke to Texas National Guardsmen deployed along the border with Mexico in the days leading up to Christmas. He told the Guardsmen that more help for border security is on the way.

“In the coming months, we anticipate more forces coming to bear to assist you and aid you, and aid the entire effort to address the challenges you are dealing with,” the Texas governor told his troops. Abbott referred to additional Texas Department of Public Safety troopers who will be permanently assigned to the border regions before the end of the year.

The governor met with dozens of Texas National Guardsmen in Weslaco, Texas, shortly before the Christmas weekend. He came to thank them for their services and to thank their family members for their support and sacrifice, KENS5 reported.

“As the people of Texas and across America enjoy the Christmas holiday, they do so under the blanket of freedom the Texas National Guard helps to protect for this state and this nation every single day,” Governor Abbott told the Guardsmen. “I would like to share my deep appreciation to the Texas National Guard, as well as the families who support them, for their ongoing commitment to ensuring the safety and security of their fellow Texans.”

The troops are deployed along the Mexican border as part of Operation Secure Texas. The program is part of the State of Texas’ ongoing effort to deter, detect, and interdict cross-border smuggling and criminal activity, according to a statement obtained by Breitbart Texas from the Office of the Texas Governor.

While in Weslaco, the governor also took the opportunity to help serve their lunch.

“Drug cartels and transnational gangs and human traffickers and smugglers don’t care if it’s maybe Christmas Eve,” he told the troops. “They care about their criminal operations where they will not be able to take advantage of what they may consider to be a reduction of forces.”

The help the governor referred to is the coming deployment of 100 DPS troopers that have been approved for the border region by the 2015 Texas Legislature, the San Antonio news outlet reported. Those troopers are expected to arrive in the border region next week.

Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas. He is a founding member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX.