“From La Matanza to Operation Lone Star: Texas Has Been Here Before — and We Still Haven’t Learned”
By SDCNewsOne
APACHE JUNCTION AZ [IFS] --There’s a brutal truth Texas leaders don’t want to admit, but every family in the Rio Grande Valley knows in their bones:
We’ve been here before.
The state calls it Operation Lone Star today — a sprawling, multibillion-dollar border militarization project launched in 2021. But for people who know their history, it’s just the latest chapter in a 110-year-old story. Back in the 1910s, Texas used a different name — La Matanza, The Massacre — when state law enforcement and deputized vigilantes terrorized Mexican communities under the banner of “security.”
Today’s politicians would have you believe the past is dead and buried.
It isn’t.
It’s standing right on the border, wearing a tactical vest.
The Old Playbook: Invent a Crisis, Declare a War Zone
During La Matanza (1910–1920), Texas officials insisted the border was on the brink of rebellion. Newspapers ran panicked stories of “Mexican bandit armies.” Politicians thundered about invasions. The Plan of San Diego — an obscure document few had ever read — became propaganda to justify state violence.
Sound familiar?
Operation Lone Star operates on the same formula:
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manufacture a crisis,
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racialize the threat,
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unleash state force with minimal oversight,
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dismiss victims as collateral or criminals.
Gov. Greg Abbott didn’t need a revolution next door; he needed a political narrative. So he built one: a border out of control, Texans under siege, and the state’s power as the last line of defense.
La Matanza had Capt. J.M. Fox and the Texas Rangers.
Operation Lone Star has National Guard units, DPS troopers, razor wire, buoys, and a legal system twisted into a funnel for mass arrests.
Different century. Same script.
Then and Now: When “Security” Becomes Permission
During La Matanza:
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innocent civilians were detained, beaten, or killed without charges,
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big ranchers worked hand-in-hand with Rangers,
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Mexican-origin communities were treated as inherently suspect,
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and state officials either looked away or cheered it on.
Under Operation Lone Star:
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people — including U.S. citizens — have been arrested without probable cause,
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migrants have been pushed back into the river,
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families have been separated by detentions,
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overflowing jails hold people for minor trespassing charges,
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razor wire has caused injuries and drownings,
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and whistleblowers described internal pressure to inflate arrest numbers.
Abbott isn’t reinventing anything.
He’s resurrecting a policing logic Texas never fully buried.
The Border as the State’s “Shadow Zone”
One of the most chilling parallels is this: under both systems, the border becomes a legal twilight zone where ordinary rights don’t apply.
In 1915, Rangers killed with impunity because state leaders allowed the border to function outside accountability. Grand juries refused to indict. Testimonies vanished. And the governor praised the Rangers’ “firmness.”
Today, Operation Lone Star runs on similar exceptions:
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State courts bypassing normal procedures,
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Military personnel enforcing state law (despite lacking training),
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Investigations that disappear into bureaucratic black holes,
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A border region treated as a militarized district, not a community.
Where the state suspends normal rules, abuse becomes inevitable.
The Racial Logic Never Changed
Let’s say the quiet part out loud:
If Operation Lone Star targeted a different demographic, it would not exist.
In the 1910s, La Matanza was justified by painting Mexican-origin communities as a threat.
Today, migrants and Latino residents are cast as the same perpetual danger.
In 1918, Rangers marched 15 unarmed Mexican American boys and men to a hill in Porvenir and executed them — and called it “protection.”
In 2023 and 2024, Operation Lone Star troopers were documented pushing families into the Rio Grande — and called it “security.”
Texas always finds noble words for ugly violence when the victims are brown.
Why This Matters: The Past Is the Warning Label
La Matanza wasn’t just mass violence; it was a moral failure.
A failure of leadership, restraint, accountability, and basic humanity.
And Texas memory keepers spent a century burying it:
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no prosecutions,
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sanitized textbooks,
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a Ranger legend airbrushed clean,
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families forced into silence.
Because if the state admitted what happened once, it would have to admit what it is capable of again.
Operation Lone Star is living proof the lesson never took.
The Reckoning Texas Still Refuses
Texans deserve border policy rooted in reality, not racial mythology.
Texans deserve law enforcement that respects rights, not suspends them.
Texans deserve leadership that doesn’t use the border as a political stage or a historical rerun.
We cannot pretend La Matanza is ancient history when its outline is visible in real time:
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militarized policing,
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racialized suspicion,
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state power without oversight,
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and communities treated like war zones.
Texas has walked this road once.
We know where it leads.
We know who pays the price.
The question now isn’t whether history is repeating — it’s whether Texans will finally break the cycle.
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