A program to buy up land in Texas to use as detention centers for migrants set for deportation will be named after murdered 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray, officials announced Tuesday.
Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham announced the launch of the "Jocelyn Initiative," a program under which the Texas General Land Office (GLO) will purchase additional land to support federal immigration policies.
Nungaray was killed in Houston in June, with officials announcing the suspects were in the U.S. illegally. It later emerged the pair were known members of the Venezuelan criminal gang Tren de Aragua.
Buckingham, a former Republican state senator, said the newly acquired plots would also be offered to the Trump administration for the construction of detention centers aimed at housing migrants slated for deportation as part of Trump's mass deportation efforts.
Newsweek has contacted the Trump campaign for comment.
"A facility here will be the final stop for processing before these violent criminals are deported. This will reduce the burden on our local jails and keep our Texas children safer," Buckingham said at a press conference in Starr County on Tuesday, November 26, for a "border wall construction kick-off."
"President Trump and Mr Homan, I meant it when I said that I will do everything in my power to help this administration. And that is why I'm announcing our offer has been extended beyond this property," Buckingham said.
"We will locate appropriate land under my jurisdiction to lease for the construction of violent criminal deportation facilities. My office has identified several of our properties and is standing by, ready to make this happen on day one of the Trump presidency."
Nungaray's mother and grandmother were at the event, after having also appeared during a border wall visit by the President-elect. The family has become the face of the Republican Party's messaging around illegal immigrant crime.
The girl's alleged killers - Johan Jose Rangel Martinez, 21, and Franklin Jose Pena Ramos, 26 - had entered the country illegally but were released by immigration officials for a later court appearance.
"It means the world to me to know that Jocelyn has touched millions of hearts, millions of people she has never met," her mother Alexis Nungaray said at the briefing Tuesday.
"Every day it's a struggle, every day it's hard. Some days are easier than others, but it never takes away the fact that she's not here anymore due to heinous people who were let into this country to do what they did to her."
Alexis said her goal was to get justice for her daughter, as well as make the lives of others in Texas safer.
Plans to continue border wall construction
Buckingham also said Texas was building a "mile a week" of border wall on her ranch, with plans to accelerate construction in the coming weeks.
Texas Representative Chip Roy, also at Tuesday's event, said building physical structures like the 30-foot-high fence was necessary to secure the U.S., but so was funding for the border patrol.
"We're here because the Biden administration, still in office, still in power, still President of the United States, has utterly refused to do his job to secure the border, purposefully and intentionally, and has released millions of people onto the streets of this country, including dangerous criminals," Roy said.
The Congressman said Republicans had been given a mandate to secure the border and deport millions of illegal immigrants.
Buckingham previously offered Trump the use of a 1,402-acre ranch along the Rio Grande on the U.S.-Mexico border for the construction of mass deportation facilities to hold those he has promised to remove.
Trump, who needs additional resources to carry out his hardline mass deportation policy, has not commented on the offer from Buckingham.
However, his newly appointed border czar, Tom Homan, accepted the offer in an interview with Fox News.
Meanwhile, Homan is visiting Eagle Pass and touring the Texas-Mexico border with Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Wednesday.
According to NewsNation, Homan and Abbott will visit a Texas military base along the banks of the Rio Grande. The pair appeared in a joint interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity on Tuesday.
Homan responded after Denver Mayor Mike Johnston said he was willing to face jail time in defiance of the Trump administration's border policies.
"You are absolutely breaking the law," Homan said. "All he has to do is look at Arizona v. U.S., and he would see he's breaking the law. But, look, I and the Denver mayor, we agree on one thing. He's willing to go to jail; I'm willing to put him in jail."
Homan added that it's a "felony if you knowingly harbor and conceal an illegal alien from immigration authorities."
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