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This article was reported and written in collaboration with States Newsroom, the nation's largest state-focused nonprofit news organization, and Stateline, a States Newsroom outlet covering trends in state policy. Read the second part of this report here.

More than a dozen Republican governors gathered in Eagle Pass in February, heeding a call from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to confront what he labeled “President Joe Biden's border crisis.” The governors, along with other GOP state leaders, vowed to send another round of National Guard troops from their states to the Texas-Mexico border.

With shifts in federal pandemic-era border policies, there'd been a sharp increase in migrant encounters in the latter half of 2023. But then January saw a steep, 50% drop.

Still, the governors told their constituents that they needed to send more people to assist Texas in fending off an “invasion,” as both Abbott and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis have called it, or fight drug smuggling. But the deployments have also been widely criticized as political grandstanding — opportunities to take photos near personnel in uniform on the border while feeding nationalism and fear during an election year.

States Newsroom outlets across the country tracked state deployments and expenses so far this year as part of a collaboration with The Texas Tribune and Stateline to get a sense of what becomes of these promises, how many people were sent to Texas by governors, and at what cost.

DeSantis announced in February he would send 1,050 National Guard troops to assist with Operation Lone Star this year, though it's not yet clear how many have been deployed. In 2024 so far, another 12 states pitched in a total of 921 guard members, plus 37 other law enforcement personnel, and Idaho sent 10 state police officers.

States generally chip in anywhere from five to 200 troops for deployments that can last from a couple of weeks to months. Typically, the funding comes from state budgets or state emergency funds.

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, for example, paid for several National Guard border deployments in recent years with money from the state's Emergency and Disaster Fund, despite a law that defines emergencies and disasters as events “in any part of the state,” according to South Dakota Searchlight. Yet she declined late last month to deploy National Guard troops to flood-ravaged areas of South Dakota.

Previous border deployments tapped the state's Emergency and Disaster Fund for at least $1.3 million. Another $1.5 million is budgeted from the fund for this year's deployment of 60 troops.

States are committing other law enforcement personnel, too. After Idaho Gov. Brad Little sent 10 state police officers in April for a three-week, $205,655 assignment, one ISP trooper said the majority of the time was spent along the border wall assisting the Texas Department of Public Safety and the National Guard with traffic stops and arrests, then turning people over to the Border Patrol.

The states' contributions are a small part of a massive effort by Abbott to control Texas' 1,250-mile border with Mexico through Operation Lone Star, launched two months after Biden took office in 2021, at a cost of $11 billion to date.

Abbott has deployed thousands of Department of Public Safety troopers and National Guard members to the border — an unprecedented activation of troops in a state operation — on top of authorizing more border wall construction and using everything from concertina wire to shipping containers to try to block migrants at the Rio Grande.

Soon after the operation began, Texas guard members began to complain about being paid late or not at all, living in cramped mobile homes and a sense of feeling underutilized.

Critics also say the state deployments duplicate effort: The federal government already deploys National Guard members to the border year-round. When the federal government deploys troops for long-term assignments, it gives them much more notice than Texas does.

But the head of the National Guard recently told Congress that these border missions don't help guard members prepare for their intended mission of defending the nation from a military attack.

Gen. Daniel Hokanson, the chief of the U.S. National Guard Bureau who will retire Sept. 1, told the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense in mid-June that nearly 2,500 troops were serving at the southwest border under federal command. Sen. Jon Tester, a Democrat from Montana, asked the general about the impact of this deployment on the guard's other duties.

“There is no military training value for what we do [on the border],” Hokanson said. “For our guardsmen there, they might as well be deployed to Kuwait or somewhere overseas, because they're away from their families. They're there doing mission sets that are not directly applicable to their military skill set. That time, I think, would be better utilized building readiness to deter our adversaries.”

When Indiana sent 50 National Guard troops for a 10-month deployment that's expected to cost $7 million, Gov. Eric Holcomb said the experience would benefit them, according to the Indiana Capital Chronicle.

“I'm reassured that the training that they got before they deployed and assumed this active duty on the southern border was beneficial,” Holcomb told reporters in April not long after an Indiana National Guard member assigned to Operation Lone Star shot a migrant who, according to a Border Patrol bulletin, was attacking another migrant. Texas officials announced they were investigating the shooting.

National Guard members have also begun using pepper ball guns, firing at migrants — including children — on both sides of the border as part of Operation Lone Star, according to The Texas Tribune.

When Missouri Gov. Mike Parson announced he was sending 200 National Guard troops and 22 State Highway Patrol officers to Texas in February, there was some debate over the deployment, which was funded in part by a special appropriation bill. During a budget hearing that month, lawmakers also raised concerns about the highway patrol's capacity, according to the Missouri Independent.

“Does that not put Missouri at risk when we're sending even more troopers away when we already have a deficit of 132?” asked state Rep. Deb Lavender, a Democrat from Manchester.

Col. Eric Olson, superintendent of the patrol, said volunteers were selected from eight of the patrol's nine regions. “Geographically, we spread that out,” Olson said, “and we feel like we will be able to manage this event as well as take care of our duties here at home.”In neighboring Kansas, the legislature this year allocated $15.7 million to send state troops to Texas. But Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed the funding, reminding lawmakers that she's the commander-in-chief of the Kansas National Guard — not state legislators.Her veto was overridden by GOP supermajorities in both the House and Senate, and the funding remains in place through fiscal year 2025 but is unlikely to be spent while Kelly remains in office.

Regardless, there are Kansas National Guard troops at the U.S. border as part of federal security efforts funded by the U.S. Department of Defense. Kelly aimed her remarks at Washington, D.C., where Republican senators blocked a sweeping, bipartisan immigration reform measure earlier this year.

“Lawmakers in Washington must act to solve this issue,” Kelly said.

Seth Tupper, Rudi Keller, Sherman Smith, Mia Maldonado, Niki Kelly and Alejandro Serrano contributed to this report.

Big news: director and screenwriter Richard Linklater; NPR President and CEO Katherine Maher; U.S. Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-California; and Luci Baines Johnson will take the stage at The Texas Tribune Festival, Sept. 5–7 in downtown Austin. Buy tickets today!

Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune's daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.

This article was reported and written in collaboration with States Newsroom, the nation's largest state-focused nonprofit news organization, and Stateline, a States Newsroom outlet covering trends in state policy. Read the second part of this report here.

EAGLE PASS — From a shaded bench off Main Street, next to the city park the state of Texas seized in January for its border operations, Jessie Fuentes sometimes likes to count the number of humvees, Department of Public Safety SUVs and unmarked trucks driven by uniformed soldiers that pass him.

Often, Fuentes said, he loses count.

“You just never wanna see your community change into a militarized zone,” said Fuentes, a retired school teacher who now runs a business giving kayak and canoe tours and lessons on the Rio Grande. “It makes you feel hopeless.”

Since Gov. Greg Abbott launched Operation Lone Star in March 2021, Texas has deployed thousands of National Guard troops — along with DPS troopers — to the border. The soldiers have patrolled the riverbank with drones and guns, installed countless coils of razor wire along its banks and at least once spied on migrants using WhatsApp. More recently, they have turned to crowd control, trying to contain groups of migrants that have pushed through state barriers and shooting pepper balls to discourage crossings.

To support the operation, 18 other states have deployed roughly 2,400 troops to the Texas-Mexico border in the last two years, Major General Thomas M. Suelzer, leader of the Texas National Guard, testified during a recent state legislative committee hearing.

“In this crisis, every state is now a border state,” Suelzer said.

Texas' unprecedented push to secure the border has defied laws and court rulings that say immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility.

In many ways, Eagle Pass has become the focal point of the state's efforts to bolster the border. Texas is building an 80-acre military base with a capacity to house more than 2,000 National Guard troops. The state also took over Shelby Park, where Main Street begins, against the city's wishes and put up a wall of shipping containers strung with razor wire along the river.

People in the city of about 30,000 have mixed feelings about being surrounded by troops. Some agree with the state's Republican leaders that the armed forces — mostly standing at the edge of the river staring at Mexico — are needed to keep migrants from entering the country. Others see it as an unwanted invasion of their tight-knit community by the state.

Either way, they don't have a say about what the state does in Eagle Pass, where Fuentes traces his family's history back 240 years.

He used to launch tours from the public boat ramp in Shelby Park, but that's been reduced to rare trips because the state has limited access to the park, he said. Where he once highlighted the beauty he grew up around, he now shows mostly out-of-town visitors the state's installations — a floating barrier in the river aimed at preventing migrants from crossing, rows of gleaming concertina wire — and talks about how it's affecting the river.

“To me, it's just upsetting that they're messing everything up,” he said. “This is our ecosystem. This is what brings us life.”

At the Eagle Grocery near Shelby Park, 80-year-old Benny Rodriguez, who runs the store with his wife, said he supports the National Guard.

“They mean well, they want to do a good job and we wish them the best of luck,” he said. “All we want is for Eagle Pass to continue striving, providing jobs and for everybody to make a good living.”

Maverick County Sheriff Tom Schmerber said neither he or his 34 deputies interact much with National Guard troops. Their presence in the community benefits the town when soldiers are off duty and spend money at restaurants and stores, he said.

Still, he'd like the state to leave Shelby Park. The city can no longer host celebrations there, people can no longer relax on the riverbank and kids can no longer play soccer, he said.

“It should be given back to the city,” Schmerber said.

In and around the 47-acre park, National Guard troops stand guard at an entrance gate and walk along the riverbank where families used to fish and unwind in the open area near the water. Now the quiet along the river is sometimes broken by the roar of airboats and the occasional chopping of a helicopter's blades as soldiers patrol by water and air.

Eagle Pass was a hot spot for migrant crossings as recently as December, when thousands of migrants entered the country through the city during record migration across the southern border. However, fewer migrants have tried entering the country through Eagle Pass since then. Border Patrol agents in the Del Rio sector, which includes Eagle Pass, recorded the biggest decrease in migrant encounters at the beginning of this year compared to their counterparts throughout the rest of the southwest border.

While encounters in the Del Rio sector have dropped 66% from May 2023 to May 2024, the El Paso sector, which includes New Mexico, has seen a smaller 10% drop over the same period.

Earlier this year, large groups of migrants regularly gathered on the Mexican bank of the dry riverbed in El Paso, waiting for an opportunity to cut through the concertina wire and push through so they could surrender and request asylum. Following two mass rushes at one border gate this spring, state troopers arrested hundreds of migrants and charged them with misdemeanor rioting — an unusual move that is now being reviewed by local courts.

National Guard soldiers also began firing pepper balls near migrants, trying to break up groups and deter them from approaching border barriers, according to Guard leadership. Soldiers are trained not to shoot migrants with the projectiles, which contain a chemical that causes irritation to the eyes, nose and throat, but migrants in Ciudad Juárez say they have been hit by the munitions, which left welts and bruises.

In the hours between dusk and dawn on a recent Monday, troops flew a drone overhead looking for migrants hiding in the brush. Others patrolled on foot, looking across the river, where empty gallons of water, shoes and bras left by migrants on their way north littered the dry riverbed.

A few migrants crawled into the U.S after several men cut a hole in concertina wire with a bolt cutter. A moment later, a truck with a wailing siren appeared.

“Get back inside! Hurry up,” a National Guard soldier yelled at several dozen migrants who approached the wire.

“Go back to Venezuela,” another one yelled.

A majority of the group quickly retreated.

Uriel J. García contributed to this story.

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CHANNELVIEW — Juan Piñón's long-sleeve black shirt and forest green pants were soaked. He used a shovel to scrape concrete mix out of a blue wheelbarrow and throw it on the ground.

The 43-year-old construction worker was hard at work rebuilding part of a fence knocked out by Hurricane Beryl, which also sent his family's trampoline crashing into his children's yard playground, cracking the slide.

Sunday was the family's seventh day without power at their home on the east side of Houston in Harris County, and the 90-degree heat and humidity didn't let them forget. His family uses a generator to power the living room air conditioner, where they sleep to stay cool. They eat fast food and chopped hot dogs. They charge their phones in the car. The devices overheat at times because of the weather.

“It's very hot, and it's very boring,” said Victor, Piñón's 12-year-old son, who wishes he were playing Call of Duty and Minecraft with his buddies. “There's nothing to do, you just have to sit there.”

The Piñones are among the hundreds of thousands of Texans entering a second week without power as temperatures remain in the 90s and the heat index nears triple digits. Hurricane Beryl landed on the Gulf Coast a week ago and swept through East Texas, knocking down trees and power lines with gusts over 80 mph. The storm maintained hurricane-level strength as it plowed through Houston, knocking out power for almost 3 million people.

CenterPoint Energy, the Houston-area utility that maintains the infrastructure for more than 2.8 million customers across Texas, said it has been restoring power faster than in recent storms. But the company has yet to provide an estimate for when about 226,000 customers will get their power back.

“We're struggling,” said Rodolfo Peña, a 51-year-old truck driver who has lived in the Channelview neighborhood for the last 25 years.

His home is located closest to a downed tree and power line, which was hanging Sunday like a necklace with a white barrel serving as a roadblock underneath it. He said he hasn't received any clarity from CenterPoint on when they are going to fix it.

His family relies on their new generator to power a small air conditioner and a freezer. Before that, they used a welding machine as a generator. They cook food the same day they buy it because they can't store anything in the refrigerator. They sweat at night when they sleep and even after taking cold showers. Their trash is not being picked up on schedule, forcing them to dump it elsewhere.

“It's really frustrating to be in this situation,” said Peña's 29-year-old daughter Esther, a Crosby resident who said she also doesn't have power. Her 1-year-old son, Adrian, was also outside the family's house Sunday, sweat dripping down his face.

Peña has decided to stay put to take care of his dog and chickens. He also wants to be home when CenterPoint finally shows up.

“It's like they're just leaving me for last,” he said.

The vast majority of Texans still without power are CenterPoint customers in Harris County, the state's most populous. Attacks on CenterPoint intensified over the weekend from angry customers. State officials said CenterPoint may not be equipped to deliver power to such a wide swath of Texas.

Gov. Greg Abbott on Sunday made his first public appearance since returning from an economic development trip in Southeast Asia and called for an investigation into CenterPoint's response to the storm.

“The failure of power companies to provide power to their customers is completely unacceptable,” he told reporters during a Sunday press conference.

CenterPoint appears to be restoring power at a faster pace than they have during previous storms. CenterPoint said on Sunday that 90% of impacted customers would have their power back before Tuesday. But people without power are tired and frustrated, especially because the company's outage tracker is still down. A new map the company released following Beryl is inaccurate, customers say.

For some in Harris County, life without power after an extreme weather event has become all too familiar.

“This is the hood,” said Odis Ward, a 52-year-old motel porter from a neighborhood in Houston's Fifth Ward. “We're used to our lights getting cut off. We're going to survive with them, we're going to survive without them.”

On Friday, Ward's area was mostly quiet. Dismembered trees and branches were scattered across the sidewalk. Dogs ran around, licking up puddles of rainwater. Residents hung out outside, talking outside their homes or on their porches

When the going gets tough, Ward said, they do what they have to do. Last week, that meant cracking doors open, sliding windows up and sleeping outside when temperatures became unbearable. Neighbors lit up their barbecue pits during the week to heat up beans, chicken, cornbread and rice.

Who does Ward think is responsible for what Houstonians are enduring? “The city!” he said in unison with his friends Vickie Williams, 70, and Wayne Bias, 51. This was nothing new for them. Thousands of Houstonians lost power in May when a derecho storm swept through the region.

Channelview resident Larry Waters had his power flicker back Friday, but he spent the day painting classrooms and hallways at a school in Fifth Ward. When the hurricane knocked his power out, the 49-year-old's message to his wife and children was straightforward: “It's time to switch to survival mode,” he said.

He didn't want to spend hours waiting in line to purchase chicken at some restaurant or to fill up his gas tank. With $200 worth of groceries ruined by the power outage, his family boiled water using a propane tank to cook up noodles.

“It's Mother Nature, man. You can't control it,” said Waters, whose hands had black paint splattered on them from work. “We all go through it day by day. It gets worse, but then it's going to get better.”

Thelma Harris, 80, also dealt with the power outage in Fifth Ward. On Friday, she took some time to enjoy a Crazy Cowboy American Lager on the front porch — with the lights back on inside.

Harris answered succinctly when sharing what she had been doing since the power returned.

“Thanking God,” she said.

On the coast in Sargent, near where Beryl first made landfall one week ago, Bob Howard and his wife offered free rooms to displaced families and first responders from out of town at the Fish Tail Inn, a seven-room hotel the couple bought in 2021 in pursuit of a dream to move down to the coast. On Friday night, they cooked enough spaghetti to feed about 200 people.

“We will serve until we run out,” the Inn posted in a Facebook invitation.

Howard also serves as a trustee on the tiny volunteer fire department, whose nine firefighters — some in old suits and others in boots that don't fit — continued responding to calls last week while also helping distribute food, water and ice, he said.

“It's been a grind but you know what? Even with all the devastation, there's a lot of smiles on people's faces and a sort of ‘bunker down' mentality,” he said.

Howard anticipated the city would next need supplies and resources to clean up the storm's wreck.

The electricity that returned to most of the city Saturday will help, too.

Disclosure: CenterPoint Energy and Facebook have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

Big news: director and screenwriter Richard Linklater; NPR President and CEO Katherine Maher; U.S. Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-California; and Luci Baines Johnson will take the stage at The Texas Tribune Festival, Sept. 5–7 in downtown Austin. Buy tickets today!