Hopkins Commissioners Court issues declaration claiming county under invasion from Mexico

HOPKINS COUNTY, Texas (KLTV) - One East Texas county is joining the push for federal help to deal with issues county officials say stem from illegal immigration. This morning, Hopkins County Commissioners approved a disaster declaration regarding what they’re calling the “Texas invasion.”

This morning Hopkins County Judge Robert Newsom read the declaration to the court.

“Since January 2021, more than 3.2 million illegal aliens have been apprehended after unlawfully entering the United States,” Newsom read. “More than 800,000 illegal aliens have avoided apprehension while unlawfully entering the United States and remain unaccounted for in our nation.”

The declaration reads, “the health, safety, and welfare of Hopkins County residents are under an imminent threat of disaster from the unprecedented levels of illegal immigration, human trafficking, and drug smuggling coming across the U.S. border from Mexico.”

Hopkins County Sheriff Lewis Tatum said years ago, when he was an investigator, they’d go out and make controlled buys. Back then, he said they’d pay $100 for a gram of methamphetamines; now it’s ten or twenty dollars.

“I’ve never seen this much pure drugs. It’s not cut; it is pure, and it is everywhere. It’s just devastating. We’ve got a lot of people that have drug problems, and this is just compounding it, making it even worse,” Tatum said.

While they aren’t close to the border, Tatum said they have Interstate 30 that runs through the county.

“There are immigrants coming through, bus loads of immigrants coming through, and going who-knows-where. I’m not talking about the ones that the governor is sending up north. I’m just talking about here,” he said. “We’ve stopped cars packed full of immigrants from all over and no help from the federal government,” Tatum said. “We’ve had one load here that my chief deputy ended up having to get a hotel room for them because the federal government said they couldn’t help us with them, just to turn them loose. We have no where to turn them loose. What’re you going to do, put them on the street? They’re women, children, and you really feel sorry for them because they don’t have anywhere to go, and they’re being promised something that they’re not receiving.”

Newsom said the proclamation states that they are under a serious situation in Texas, in Hopkins County, as well as the United States.

“We ask that that should be noted by our state and our nation: that we have a very serious situation across the state,” Newsom said.

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