Texas is emerging as Donald Trump’s most consequential political battleground.
Steve Bannon, a prominent Trump ally and MAGA firebrand, is calling on the president to deploy troops to Texas cities as Democrats who swept the state in last week’s midterm elections move to dismantle Trump’s deportation infrastructure.
“This is an emergency. It has to happen now,” Trump’s former chief strategist told Our News Outlet in an exclusive interview. “You have to lean into this.”
Aaron Reitz, Trump’s top federal prosecutor in Houston, said his lawyers were now “the last men standing” as the threat of Texas cities becoming a “Minneapolis-style insane asylum” had “increased significantly.”
Our News Outlet has learned exclusively that the US attorney’s office in Houston is “actively looking at” an executive order signed last Friday by the city’s Democratic mayor that limits local police cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.
Bannon said Democrats now in control of Texas intend to take “the jewel in the crown of the union” and transform it into a sanctuary state. If they succeed, he warned, “you’re never going to get the country back.”
The task of defending Trump’s immigration agenda now rests with Stephen Miller, the architect of the administration’s deportation crackdown, who replaced Susie Wiles as White House chief of staff on Friday.
“Miller is the biggest middle finger you can possibly have,” said Matt Mackowiak, a former senior adviser to Cornyn’s Senate reelection campaign and president of Potomac Strategy Group.
Donald Trump wears a cowboy hat in the Oval Office
A migrant crouches beneath barbed wire as a soldier watches near the Rio Grande in El Paso, Texas
Stephen Miller’s first major test as Trump’s new chief of staff will be confronting Texas Democrats over mass deportations
Mackowiak predicted that Miller would push the White House toward an “extremely, extremely hard-line” approach, dismissing subpoenas while accelerating ICE deportations, which have already reached record levels. CBS News reported Tuesday that ICE removed 483,200 people during the fiscal year ending September 30.
He said Miller’s appointment had little support among congressional Republicans, estimating it was “probably popular with 20 percent of House members” and “less than five percent of Republican senators.”
“It means Trump learned nothing from the election,” Mackowiak said. “It means he doesn’t care about the message voters sent.”
Two American citizens were fatally shot by federal agents during unrest in Minneapolis amid the immigration crackdown in January, triggering a national backlash against Trump’s tough immigration policies. By November, midterm exit polls showed voters had overwhelmingly rejected ICE operations, helping fuel the Democratic “Blue-nami” wave.
Mackowiak said voters might have supported targeting migrants who commit crimes, but argued that raids at Home Depot locations had gone “way over the top.”
“The message Trump got is, ‘Nope, you know what, I lost [the midterms] because I didn’t deport enough people,’” he said. “So Stephen Miller is going to figure out how to deport more people.”
Bannon told Our News Outlet that he expects Miller to adopt an equally uncompromising approach.
“Hey, this isn’t Minnesota, right? This is Texas,” he said.
Miller has previously argued that Trump has the authority to take control of a state’s National Guard. Speaking to CNN in October last year, he said the president could federalize the Guard whenever he believed federal resources were inadequate for a mission required to protect public safety.
That month, Trump sent troops to Illinois and Oregon despite objections from Democratic governors. The deployment included 400 Texas National Guard members volunteered by then-Governor Greg Abbott.
The Supreme Court blocked the Chicago operation in a 6-3 decision in December, concluding that Trump had likely exceeded his authority. The president subsequently withdrew the Guard from Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland.
Beginning January 19, the Texas National Guard will report to Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa.
Texas Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa speaks during a press conference in Austin
Our News Outlet has learned exclusively that the US attorney’s office in Houston is “actively looking at” a Houston order limiting local police cooperation with ICE
Steve Bannon is urging Trump to send troops to Texas cities as Democrats who swept the state last week seek to dismantle his deportation program
Migrants cross the Texas border in May 2023 during the Biden administration’s border crisis
During a Sunday interview with 60 Minutes, Trump said the deportation campaign had been “too tough” and suggested he might reach an agreement with Democrats allowing some migrants to remain in the United States. Bannon, however, said the president “shouldn’t even have a conversation” with Democrats about amnesty because “it can’t be trusted.”
“I think ICE will stay the course for now,” a former senior ICE official told Our News Outlet. “But after the president’s comments on 60 Minutes about the hard stance, there may be an adjustment or a step back.”
Mackowiak said Miller had opposed Trump’s endorsement of incumbent Senator Cornyn throughout the Texas primary campaign. Trump instead backed Ken Paxton, the state’s scandal-plagued attorney general.
Paxton ultimately lost by 12 points, while Republicans were defeated in every statewide race in a state Trump had carried by roughly 13 points just two years earlier.
“In a way, it’s fitting and ironic that Stephen Miller’s idiotic political analysis of the US Senate race in Texas is now creating massive policy and governmental problems in Texas,” Mackowiak said.
The Democratic sweep could also create serious difficulties for Republicans heading into the 2028 presidential election.
Texas has 40 electoral votes, more than any state except California.
“There’s not one person with a working brain who believes Republicans can hold the White House without Texas,” Mackowiak said.
Bannon warned that Republicans “will never win the Electoral College back” if Texas becomes a sanctuary state. He urged Miller to cut off “every penny” of federal funding to cities that refuse to cooperate with ICE.
The concern is tied in part to the census, which counts every resident, regardless of citizenship, when congressional seats and electoral votes are reapportioned every decade. Bannon claimed that a sanctuary Texas could attract “another 10 or 15 million in one year” and that Democrats would “turn them into voters,” giving a blue Texas even greater influence in Congress and the Electoral College.
Mackowiak said Miller opposed Trump’s endorsement of Cornyn throughout the Texas Senate primary, with Trump backing Paxton instead
Paxton lost to Democrat James Talarico
Mackowiak called it “fitting and ironic” that Miller’s analysis of the Texas Senate race could now produce major policy and government problems for the state
Texas Democrats are already testing their expanded authority, more than two months before Hinojosa takes office as the state’s first Latina governor.
Hinojosa, a state representative from Austin, defeated three-term Governor Abbott by seven points. Democrats also captured the offices of lieutenant governor and attorney general.
“Everything we could lose, we lost,” Mackowiak said.
Three days after the election, Houston Mayor John Whitmire issued an executive order preventing city police from contacting ICE unless a person with an immigration warrant had also been arrested for a jailable offense.
“I also do this knowing that elections matter,” Whitmire said, expressing hope that the policy would serve as a model for other Texas cities.
Reitz is reviewing the order and told Our News Outlet that local officials could face “potential federal criminal or civil liability” over restrictions on cooperation with ICE.
He said investigators were examining whether the directive violated the terms attached to federal grant funding that the mayor “has cashed in from the federal government.”
Reitz emphasized that the investigation had not been requested by Justice Department headquarters or the White House.
“Nobody is directing me to do anything in particular here,” he said.
“My office is prepared to prosecute those who will instigate the kind of insurrection we saw in Minneapolis, and that is brewing in every other major far-left-wing urban center around the country.”
Asked who would be responsible if Houston descended into disorder, Reitz said he could not “put a specific name on it,” but he suggested that responsibility could extend from protesters to City Hall.
“Whether you’re a masked Antifa member, or you’re a suited-up mayor of the fourth-largest city in the country, or you’re something in between, giving aid and cover to those who want to destroy our country,” he said.
“Let me be clear: Those are the people who deserve the blame for declines in public safety.”
Democratic-run sanctuary cities have declined to let local police cooperate with ICE agents during Trump’s mass deportation campaign
Migrants enter through the southern border in January 2025, shortly before Trump returned to office
Aaron Reitz, Trump’s top federal prosecutor in Houston, said his attorneys were now “the last men standing”
Reitz has already engaged in a public dispute with Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare, who indicted ICE agent Mario Alberto Morales on an aggravated assault charge after Morales struck fleeing immigrant Miguel Parra-Hernandez with his vehicle in October.
Reitz maintains that Parra-Hernandez ran into the agent’s vehicle. Teare has said body-camera footage disputes that version of events.
Reitz accused the district attorney of trying to “put an ICE scalp up on the wall.”
County jails are at the center of the dispute. Nearly half of ICE arrests take place inside jails, where local deputies operating under the federal 287(g) program check the immigration status of people booked into custody.
Texas has 527 such agreements, and a state law requires every sheriff running a jail to sign one by December 1. The law was opposed by incoming Democratic Attorney General Nathan Johnson, who will now be responsible for enforcing it.
Reitz said the incoming Democratic leadership was sending “a very troubling message” on law and order and that he was preparing his “legal troops” for the transition.
He vowed to use “every available federal power at my disposal” regardless of the state’s political shift.
“If you think it’s bad now, wait until January, when you have a state government-local government axis partnering to do significantly more damage to the men and women of federal law enforcement,” he said.
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