'Shut it down': Red state makes massive land buy to ramp up border wall efforts amid migrant surge

The Texas General Land Office (GLO) has acquired the ranch in Starr County, in Border Patrol's Rio Grande Sector, which saw some of the highest levels of migrant traffic. The state will now use that land to build additional border wall.

Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham told Fox News Digital that the Texas Facilities Commission, responsible for building the wall, requested the property. It now means that the GLO owns two pieces of land on the border in Starr Country encompassing more than 4,000 acres.

"They said, 'Look, it's in the main area of where we're seeing the traffic across the border. We have terrible things happening on this piece of property. The current owner is not only blocking the border wall, but she is blocking law enforcement's access to that property,'" she said. "'And to really get complete operational control of the border, we really need to control this piece of ground.' So we made her an offer. We found a way to purchase her ranch from her."

Buckingham said the state has already been out with bulldozers on the property, and she believes construction will begin quickly.

"It's at an area of great impact, it's in an area where we see lots of people coming across all of the time, not only seeing the people coming across, but seeing those women and children who are abused and victimized. We're seeing drugs. We're seeing weapons. We're seeing all kinds of things coming across this particular part of the border," she said. "In fact, when we were touring it [Thursday], lots of trash everywhere. You can tell there have been a lot of people through there. So we think that this barrier, this wall that the Texas Facilities Commission will build, will help to control that traffic and hopefully shut it down."

Buckingham noted that it's in addition to other moves made by Texas, including a recent declaration of Fronton Island to be state property, so that the area can be secured from illegal crossings.

"But we're excited to see the progress made on this ranch. We're excited that it will have a positive impact on the mass migration that's happening across our border, and that's what we want," she said.

Fox News' Emma Woodhead contributed to this report.