Texas launches billboards asking illegal migrants the most shocking question ever to dissuade crossings

Texas Governor Greg Abbott's new anti-border crossing campaign uses shocking language to warn illegal migrants that their daughter may be raped if they try to cross.

The Lone Star State is launching a visceral billboard campaign in Mexico and Central America to deter illegal immigration by highlighting sexual assault and other dangers. 

One of the 40 billboards asks illegal migrants a shocking question in multiple languages: 'How much did you pay to have your daughter raped?' 

Abbott's move was made not long after Donald Trump's 'border czar' Tom Homan said the Texas governor had done more to secure the border than any member of the Biden administration. 

The campaign is costing $100,000, with Abbott hoping to warn those looking to cross the border of the cost they'll face for doing so. 

Another warned that migrants will be arrested if they enter Texas illegally. In addition to Spanish, billboards are being produced in Russian, Chinese and Arabic.

Messages on other billboards include: 'Many girls who try to migrate to Texas are kidnapped. For the sake of your family, stop.' 

Another reads: 'This fourteen-year-old girl was raped by more than 20 men on her way to the border.'

One more reads: 'Your wife and daughter will pay for the trip with their bodies.' 

'They give potential illegal immigrants thinking of leaving their home country — and those already on the way — a realistic picture of what will happen to them on their journey or if they illegally cross into Texas,' Abbott said. 

'Our goal right now, immediately, is not only to discourage them from coming, but to help them understand the consequences,' Abbott said.

Abbott held the unveiling of the campaign in Eagle Pass, next to what were the charred remains of what's known as a 'rape tree,' which Abbott claims was used by traffickers to sexually assault migrants before being burned down as a memorial.

'It makes you terrified to go out of your own house and enjoy your own property,' said rancher Kimberly Wall. 

'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. 

'We want no more rape trees in Texas,' Abbott said, although a 2022 investigation called into question whether or not such things exist. 

The number of migrants caught illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border soared to record highs after President Joe Biden took office in 2021, fueling criticism by Abbott and other Republicans.

Trump recaptured the White House in November pledging mass deportations and aggressive border security efforts.

Biden toughened his border policies earlier this year, leading to a steep drop in migrants caught crossing illegally in recent months.

Abbott said the billboard campaign costs about $100,000 and aims to turn back migrants thinking of crossing illegally before Trump takes office on Jan. 20.

'There are many people who may make a last-gasp effort,' Abbott said.

Texas officials said in November that the state would offer 1,400 acres of land near the border to the incoming Trump administration for its mass deportation initiative.

Last week, Homan revealed his plans for more than 1,400 acres of Texas land the Lonestar State gifted the federal government last month.

Speaking to Dr. Phil, the talk show host turned closed border advocate, Homan said he has been devising plans to use the 1,402-acre ranch in Starr County that Texas officials acquired in October to facilitate the construction of a border wall. 

'I'm writing the plan as we speak. I was working on it last night as a matter of fact,' Homan, 63, a former Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, told Dr. Phil on  Merit TV.

He went on to praise Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's administration for its efforts to secure the southern border with Mexico - and said he would use the land as a holding area for migrants before they could be put on deportation flights.

'The 1,400 acres of land, that saves us from acquiring the land,' Homan said. 

'The government never buys things fast and when we do, we overpay for it, so having this from the state of Texas is great.' 

The state's Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham had suggested last month that the former ranch could be used for such deportation efforts as she announced that the state was giving the federal government ownership of the property.

'I was brainstorming with my team, and we figured, the Trump Administration probably needs some deportation facilities because we've got a lot of these violent criminals that we need to round up and get the heck out of our country,' she explained to Fox News. 

'We're happy to make this offer and hope they take us up on it,' she said of the land she said had been overrun with drug smuggling and human trafficking.

Trump had tapped Homan to lead the 'largest' deportation of migrants in US history when his administration takes over on January 20. 

Migrants who have committed crimes while in the United States will be the first to be targeted - but Trump's plans don't stop there.  

As DailyMail.com previously reported, Trump's team also plans to target legal migrants, including asylum seekers and those who entered the US with humanitarian parole under the Biden Administration. 

Additionally, the incoming government is seeking ways to change who is considered an American, by ending birthright citizenship guaranteed under the US Constitution.