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Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced the launch of a new campaign to deter illegal border crossings using stark messages on billboards.

The Republican leader is hoping the 40 billboards throughout Mexico and Central America in multiple languages, including Spanish, Russian, Chinese, and Arabic, will dissuade migrants from making the journey to cross illegally into the U.S.

Abbott said the strategy will cost approximately $100,000 and will employ shocking messages emphasizing the dangers along the route such as sexual assault.

Speaking at a press conference Thursday in Eagle Pass, Abbott unveiled the billboards that included bold messages like: “Stop, if you cross the border illegally into Texas, you will be jailed,” and “Your wife and daughter will pay for the trip with their bodies. Coyotes lie. Don’t put your family at risk.”

Other signs sported messages like, “How much did you pay to have your daughter raped?” and “‘Many girls who try to migrate to Texas are kidnapped. For the sake of your family, stop.’”

(Video Credit: Fox News)

“We are launching a new campaign to deter illegal immigration into Texas,” Abbott said at the press conference at Wall Ranch where he pointed to the charred remains of a burned tree referred to as a “rape tree” where traffickers sexually assaulted migrants.

“Yesterday, we began putting up billboards – dozens of billboards – in Central America and in Mexico. They inform potential illegal immigrants about the reality of what will happen to them if they try to enter Texas illegally,” he said, adding that the signs “tell the horror stories of human trafficking.”

“This is tough medicine,” the governor added.

Abbott spoke of the incoming Trump administration and the bold plans to deport illegal immigrants. He also highlighted his government’s efforts through Operation Lone Star and vowed, “We will continue to arrest” any coming through Texas illegally.

The Republican governor added that the “horror” of the illegal migrant crisis is something “that we fully expect to end beginning in about a month when President Trump takes office and shuts down the border and restores safety and normalcy.”

Kimberly Wall, the rancher who owns the property where the press conference was held, spoke of witnessing “lots of women” who were “left to die” near her home after being raped and beaten.

“It makes you terrified to go out of your own house and enjoy your own property,” Wall said. “I know my husband has found three different rape trees and burned them down. You don’t know if you’ll be attacked by one of the men hiding in the brush. We all want a better life for everybody.”

Frieda Powers
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