Texas Gov. Greg Abbott unveils ‘horrific realities’ billboard campaign in Mexico and Central America in bid to stop illegal border crossings
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott plans to strategically place 40 billboards across Central America and Mexico with messages warning illegal migrants of the “horrific realities” they face in their attempt to cross into the Lone Star state.
Abbott unveiled six renderings Thursday of the billboards — which will be seen in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico and along the Texas-Mexico border — in front of a burned-down rape tree, at Wall Ranch in Eagle Pass, Texas.
“These billboards tell the horror stories of human trafficking,” Abbott said. “They implore those people in Central America to consider the violent, horrific realities of what will happen to the women and children they bring with them.
In one billboard, which featured a pregnant woman, Abbott warned, “Your wife and daughter will pay for the trip with their bodies.”
“This 14-year-old girl was raped by more than 20 men on her way to the border. Protect your family. Change their fate,” another billboard read.
“How much did you pay to have your daughter raped?” a third billboard read as the grim message is plastered over the face of a smiling child.
Abbott said that officials have arrested “thousands” of migrants who have bypassed the border wall, his controversial razor wire fencing and the floating buoy border wall — which he plans to expand ahead of the surge before President-elect Trump takes office on Jan. 20.
“Through Operation Lone Star, we have done some incredible work to stop illegal border crossers,” Abbott said. “But this new effort is about stopping their journey from even beginning in the first place. Until President Donald Trump is back in the White House to secure our border once again, we will continue to take every step necessary to defend Texas.”
The messages that will be displayed throughout Mexico — also written in Chinese, Arabic and Russian — told migrants that they would be jailed if they entered Texas.
The billboard marketing campaign will cost roughly $100,000.
“This is tough medicine,” Abbott said. “But we want no more rape trees in Texas. Do not make the dangerous trek to Texas.”
Rancher Kimberly Wall expressed her concern for local safety after seeing “lots of women” who were raped and beaten and “left to die” near her home.
“It makes you terrified to go out of your own house and enjoy your own property,” Wall said. “I know my husband has found three different rape trees and burned them down. You don’t know if you’ll be attacked by one of the men hiding in the brush. We all want a better life for everybody.”
Trump has vowed to enact the largest deportation in history and declare a “national emergency” to use “military assets to reverse the Biden invasion” and deport illegal migrants.
Last month, a Lone Star State source told The Post that Texas officials are looking at a plan that would ship newly arrived illegal migrants directly to ICE holding centers.
The proposed plan would make it so that migrants can be processed quickly for deportation.
Under the proposed plan, buses chartered by Texas from border cities will be rerouted from sanctuary cities including New York, Chicago and Denver to federal detention centers to help Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents process them more quickly, the source said.
