Texas. A bastion of red-blooded Americans with guns and horses and… well, maybe that description is not necessarily true to the current situation. A development named “Colony Ridge” is in Liberty County, Texas, just north of Houston, near a small town called Plum Grove. According to a Daily Wire investigation, it appears to be a place where illegal immigrants and drug cartels are able to hold American land without the usual requirements. Developers hope it will one day be a city of 200,000 residents. Currently, it looks like a plain old trailer park, but it’s growing fast.

A Texas land developer has established a sprawling settlement north of Houston where thousands of illegal immigrants are believed to have settled, raising concerns among experts and elected officials that the development 400 miles in the interior of the United States could become a strategic asset for cartels…

A calculation performed based on acreage and lot data provided on the Colony Ridge website for each of their six subdivisions found that it was already more than 60 square miles, which is bigger than major southern cities such as Fayetteville, Arkansas, and Asheville, North Carolina.

Colony Ridge, owned and operated by developer William “Trey” Harris, is rapidly expanding, at least in part due to a financing arrangement that makes it possible for illegal aliens to buy land deep in the heart of Texas. While traditional financing methods require credit ratings and proof of income, Todd Bensman, a National Security Fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, told The Daily Wire that buyers at Colony Ridge are able to circumvent the usual requirements, even dodging the need to provide a social security number. Daily Wire

A helicopter tour of the development revealed numerous problems.

Marketing to people outside the country

“Doing business as Terrenos Houston (which translates to Houston Land), the company appears to market its property entirely in Spanish, telling prospective buyers they can own land in the United States.” Daily Wire

Is this a “no go” district being built in the middle of traditionally red Texas?

“Colony Ridge sprawls across nearly 60 square miles — about the size of Washington DC — and is 40 miles outside Houston. Much of CR is a 3rd world shanty town, where foreign flags outnumber American ones. But how do we know that it’s a hotbed for illegal aliens? CR goes by “Terrenos Houston” on Instagram, where marketing materials are entirely in Spanish. Here’s a post where they tell buyers to “own land in the ‘Estados Unidos’” and reach out on WhatsApp, an app tailored for international comms. And it gets worse. For a company allegedly selling American real estate to Americans, they seem to have A LOT of foreign nationals in Latin America working for them.” Spencer Lindquist on X.com

colony ridge

screenshot of the makeup of the organization

 

Developer Trey Harris is a large donor to Texas politicians, including Gov Greg Abbott, and State Rep. Ernest Bailes, who is the official from the district where Colony Ridge exists.  You can see the numbers herehere, and here.

Calls for an investigation into Colony Ridge are growing – their use of ITIN numbers rather than Social Security ones to purchase American land is one area that may be a focus of the investigations. Another area is that the land is cheap, and the buyer is responsible for building…with the plethora of trailers on the properties rather than houses it’s a concern in tornado-prone Texas. But the greatest concerns revolve around the possible investment of the Gulf and Sinaloa cartels early on in the project.

“The Mexican cartels are very active in that they run safe houses, they run drugs, they do marijuana grows, they commit crimes. This is a homeland security issue. It’s a public safety issue.” Todd Bensman, Center for Immigration Studies

 

Cross-Posted with Conservative Firing Line