Colony Ridge Gave Greg Abbott $1.5 Million. Here’s What Greg Abbott Gave Colony Ridge.

When the Trump administration’s deportation raids began in Texas, the epicenter was Colony Ridge.

In the first wave of raids alone, more than 100 illegals — including murder suspects, drug lords, sexual predators, and a confirmed cartel member — were nabbed by authorities in the infamous housing development, which ballooned as illegal immigrants flooded the state. The “fastest growing” development in the country markets cheap land to foreigners, and illegal immigrants took the bait: in an area where there was next to nothing less than a decade ago, there are now as many as 100,000 residents and more than 35,000 properties. Through its aggressive marketing of cheap land in the United States, it was projected to grow to a quarter of a million people.

But the rapid growth of an illegal immigrant haven was not thanks to the marketing strategy alone: A Daily Wire investigation found that in 2018, Colony Ridge’s growth was supercharged by an Opportunity Zone designation awarded by the federal government following a direct plea from Texas Governor Greg Abbott. The Opportunity Zone program aims to spur development of low-income areas by offering investors significant tax breaks, including the deferral of capital gains taxes.

Though Abbott has attempted to distance himself from Colony Ridge after its practices were exposed — his office was an active partner in the federal deportation raids — The Daily Wire found that the governor helped lay the economic groundwork that made the development’s explosive growth possible, and that developers donated to and built a relationship with Abbott as they worked to build Colony Ridge up to its current 34,000-acre footprint.

This report is based on pages of previously unreleased communications, meeting logs, and other internal documents obtained by The Daily Wire through public records requests. It reveals that Abbott petitioned the federal government to secure the major tax incentive for Colony Ridge as the development’s backers made donations to his campaign, and paid multiple visits to the governor’s mansion.

Abbott’s Relationship with Colony Ridge

At least on paper, the relationship between Abbott and Trey Harris, the lead developer of Colony Ridge, began in 2018. On March 19 of that year, Celeste Harris, the developer’s wife, donated $100,000 to Abbott, according to state campaign finance records. That donation came just two days before the original deadline for states to nominate census tracts for opportunity zone status.

Then on March 21, the day of the deadline, Abbott wrote a letter to the Treasury Department nominating the area surrounding Colony Ridge to be designated a federal Opportunity Zone, according to records obtained by The Daily Wire, which asked Texas to produce all correspondence regarding the designation of the Colony Ridge development as an opportunity zone.

Two weeks later, on April 4, Harris and a local lawmaker named Brandon Creighton were Abbott’s guests for lunch at the governor’s mansion, according to meeting logs obtained through a records request. And just two days after the lunch meeting, on April 6, Abbott penned a second letter to the Treasury Department on the Opportunity Zone request. Four days later, on April 10, he sent a third letter to finalize his nomination of the census tracts to become Qualified Federal Opportunity Zones.

By July 9, 2018, the IRS had designated Colony Ridge and the surrounding land an Opportunity Zone.

Over the next four years, Harris would become one of Abbott’s biggest individual donors. Harris gave his first direct contribution to Abbott on June 25, 2018, around the time of the Opportunity Zone designation, to the tune of $100,000. All told, Trey and Celeste Harris would give $1.5 million to Abbott from 2018 to 2022, making Trey Harris Abbott’s 15th largest individual donor at the time.

As Trey Harris’ donations continued, so did his appearances at the governor’s mansion. On May 18, 2018, Trey Harris attended a “summer kickoff fiesta” at the governor’s mansion. He returned for a widely-attended December 11th, 2018, reception, and a more intimate, six-person dinner on December 4th, 2020, the meeting logs obtained by The Daily Wire show.

Greg Abbott Responds 

Abbott’s office disputes the notion that the letters to Treasury came due to his relationship with Harris alone. His spokesman, Andrew Mahaleris, provided letters from other individuals in the area advocating for the census tract, including Colony Ridge, to become an Opportunity Zone.

Mahaleris told The Daily Wire that the Opportunity Zone designation is not to blame for Colony Ridge’s problems, emphasizing steps Abbott has taken to address illegal immigration, environmental issues, and crime in the development.

“The Opportunity Zone designation did not create the problem in Colony Ridge. Governor Abbott is ensuring safety there and across the state. Governor Abbott directed the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to investigate any potential environmental issues in Colony Ridge, whether it be air, water, or land,” Mahaleris told The Daily Wire. “He requested the Attorney General’s office to issue subpoenas to investigate any legal violations, leading to Texas filing suit against the development.”

“The Governor also directed the Texas Department of Public Safety to deploy tactical strike teams to work alongside our federal partners to enforce immigration laws throughout the state, including in Colony Ridge. Governor Abbott also provided additional funding for enhanced law enforcement presence in Colony Ridge,” he added. “These teams will coordinate with Homeland Security agencies to track down the thousands of illegal immigrants with active warrants across Texas and deport them from our country.”

There is no evidence to suggest Abbott was aware of the Colony Ridge business model, which openly targets immigrant populations with the opportunity to “own land in the United States.”

The Daily Wire’s first report on Colony Ridge in September 2023 prompted Abbott to address the development. The governor called two different special sessions of the state legislature and urged lawmakers to consider bills “concerning public safety, security, environmental quality, and property ownership in areas like the Colony Ridge development.”

The special sessions resulted in the passage of legislation that dedicated up to $40 million for state troopers to patrol the development. The crime has not subsided — nearly 350 pounds of meth were recently seized from drug traffickers in the development, and authorities captured an MS-13 member and murder suspect in the development after he led them on a seven-hour manhunt. The El Salvadoran national had been deported from the United States seven times prior to his most recent arrest.

Trey Harris soured on Abbott at the outset of the controversy in 2023.

“He’s a politician, it is what it is, he’s got to cover his butt first,” the Colony Ridge developer told the New York Times. “But don’t expect a million dollars next year. It ain’t happening again, brother.”

Colony Ridge Capitalizes on Opportunity Zone Status

Colony Ridge has used its Opportunity Zone designation to attract investment. The designation allows investors to receive tax benefits if they maintain capital in an Opportunity Zone fund.

If you reinvest capital gains in an Opportunity Zone and maintain the investment for at least five years, you can exempt a portion of your gains from taxes. The longer you hold the investment, the bigger that portion grows — if you maintain it for a decade, it’s exempt from capital gains taxes altogether.

Tax Foundation senior policy analyst Alex Muresianu told The Daily Wire that the Opportunity Zone status would have fueled growth through “tax breaks for capital flowing into finance expansion, rather than through direct investment incentives for the current owner of the business.”

It made sure this benefit was front and center as it advertised land to commercial and industrial buyers. The development advertises to potential investors that its flagship Santa Fe masterplan is “located in an OPPORTUNITY zone!” and is the “fastest growing development in the U.S.”

Colony Ridge also says the Santa Fe masterplan — the largest of six subdivisions of the development — will be “30% Larger Than The Woodlands In Size and Population Upon Completion!” That’s a reference to the nearby affluent development with 117,000 residents, meaning it believes its largest subdivision alone would have more than 150,000 people.

In another advertisement, Colony Ridge boasts that it is selling land “located in an opportunity zone” and says that the population is “set to reach an impressive 250,000 upon completion.” Colony Ridge calls itself the “fastest growing community in Texas.”

Local outlet Houston Landing used satellite imagery to visualize the rapid growth of Colony Ridge from 2017 to 2024 — thanks to rapid development, there are more than 35,000 properties where there used to be almost nothing.

Some of the outside capital flowing into the development appears to have come from a real estate company with direct ties to the lawmaker who joined Harris for his April 4, 2018, lunch meeting at the governor’s mansion: State Senator Brandon Creighton.

The Creighton Connection

Neither Harris nor Abbott have addressed what was discussed at the lunch. Creighton, the third attendee at the lunch, told The Daily Wire that all he recalls is a discussion of “the history of the grounds” and “the property and the home itself.”

But Creighton, who represents the state senate district adjacent to Colony Ridge and recently became the senate’s president pro tempore, also happens to have an apparent financial interest in the development. Creighton is vice president and general counsel at a real estate development company, the Signorelli Company, where he’s worked since 2000.

The Signorelli Company is one of the leading home builders in Colony Ridge.

It detailed its Colony Ridge plans in an October 2019 press release that says the “privately-held homebuilding division of the Signorelli Company” would be building “affordably priced home offerings” in Colony Ridge.

“Developed by Colony Ridge Land, the Santa Fe masterplan is planned to consist of 6,400 restricted residential lots,” said the release for the massive development project. The Santa Fe masterplan, by far the largest of Colony Ridge’s subdivisions, is the same subdivision that the development advertises as being “located in an OPPORTUNITY zone!”

The Signorelli Company also owns another master plan, called Valley Ranch, a commercial property located in a nearby Opportunity Zone. Colony Ridge’s marketing brand, Terrenos Houston, advertises the Valley Ranch shopping center on its website.

When The Daily Wire questioned Creighton on the relationship between Colony Ridge and the Signorelli Company, the state senator said that he “wasn’t a part of any business discussion at the 2018 lunch,” and that “all developers in Texas should follow the law, state and federal.” He also went on to express support for border security measures.

But Creighton’s connections to Colony Ridge appear to run deeper. Creighton’s campaign took $5,000 from Harris in 2014, campaign finance records show.

And he has also received $17,000 from the political action committee of Coats Rose, the legal and lobbying firm that manages Colony Ridge’s municipal management district and municipal utility district, two political bodies awarded to Colony Ridge that have the power to tax residents for public services. Colony Ridge has spent anywhere from $221,750 to $482,879 from 2015 until the present for the services of Coats Rose lobbyists.

Creighton has drawn scrutiny in the past for his votes on legislation that benefits the Signorelli Company, a situation that one local outlet called “ethically complex.”

The senator has received $67,000 since 2018 from Daniel Signorelli, the President and CEO of the Signorelli Company, making him Creighton’s third-largest individual donor.

Colony Ridge vs. The United States

The revelations surrounding the relationship between Abbott, Creighton, and Colony Ridge come as the development faces legal problems in the wake of an investigative series from The Daily Wire. In 2023, the Department of Justice and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced a joint lawsuit against Colony Ridge, alleging that the sprawling development targeted Hispanic buyers with bait-and-switch sales and predatory financing practices, in violation of federal law.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton launched his own lawsuit against Colony Ridge, alleging that the development uses deceptive trade practices to churn buyers through a cycle of foreclosure. Paxton told The Daily Wire that “literally every sale” made by Colony Ridge could be fraudulent, with each violation coming with a penalty of at least $10,000. The financial penalties could prove to be an existential threat to the development.

Colony Ridge faces an ongoing investigation from the Environmental Protection Agency, the scope and results of which have yet to be made public. The development is also reportedly facing investigations from the IRS, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

The most dramatic action against Colony Ridge came earlier this year when ICE and the Texas Department of Public Safety carried out a day-long raid at the development, arresting 118 illegal aliens.

Abbott said he spent months helping to coordinate the raid. Prior to the enforcement actions, Border Czar Tom Homan also met with the area’s State Representative, Janis Holt.

“Addressing the challenges posed by Colony Ridge requires coordinated efforts at the federal, state and local levels,” Holt wrote after the meeting. “I enjoyed my conversation with Border Czar Tom Homan. We will coordinate with his office and attack this issue head on.”

Holt replaced former State Representative Ernest Bailes after The Daily Wire exposed his connections to Colony Ridge. Bailes took thousands in political donations from Harris, and was intimately involved in the development’s formation. He lost in a primary to Holt.

Monte Harris Lane, who is the developer’s cousin, told The Daily Wire that he believes the federal allegations, based on what he knows about the operation.

Lane’s brother is the main foreclosure agent for Colony Ridge. Lane says his brother bragged about Colony Ridge’s practice of reselling foreclosed lots for a profit after defaulted borrowers made improvements to the property.

“They just flip it and if they’ve added any type of improvements like water, septic, things of that nature, the property is worth more. They just … sell it,” he said.

“They’re selling out Texas, America, and the Constitution and our freedom and liberties for money,” Monte Harris Lane, a cousin of Harris, told The Daily Wire. “I think my grandpa would turn over in his grave.”

A representative for Colony Ridge declined to provide a comment for this story, citing the pending lawsuits.

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When the Trump administration’s deportation raids began in Texas, the epicenter was Colony Ridge.

In the first wave of raids alone, more than 100 illegals — including murder suspects, drug lords, sexual predators, and a confirmed cartel member — were nabbed by authorities in the infamous housing development, which ballooned as illegal immigrants flooded the state. The “fastest growing” development in the country markets cheap land to foreigners, and illegal immigrants took the bait: in an area where there was next to nothing less than a decade ago, there are now as many as 100,000 residents and more than 35,000 properties. Through its aggressive marketing of cheap land in the United States, it was projected to grow to a quarter of a million people.

But the rapid growth of an illegal immigrant haven was not thanks to the marketing strategy alone: A Daily Wire investigation found that in 2018, Colony Ridge’s growth was supercharged by an Opportunity Zone designation awarded by the federal government following a direct plea from Texas Governor Greg Abbott. The Opportunity Zone program aims to spur development of low-income areas by offering investors significant tax breaks, including the deferral of capital gains taxes.

Though Abbott has attempted to distance himself from Colony Ridge after its practices were exposed — his office was an active partner in the federal deportation raids — The Daily Wire found that the governor helped lay the economic groundwork that made the development’s explosive growth possible, and that developers donated to and built a relationship with Abbott as they worked to build Colony Ridge up to its current 34,000-acre footprint.

This report is based on pages of previously unreleased communications, meeting logs, and other internal documents obtained by The Daily Wire through public records requests. It reveals that Abbott petitioned the federal government to secure the major tax incentive for Colony Ridge as the development’s backers made donations to his campaign, and paid multiple visits to the governor’s mansion.

Abbott’s Relationship with Colony Ridge

At least on paper, the relationship between Abbott and Trey Harris, the lead developer of Colony Ridge, began in 2018. On March 19 of that year, Celeste Harris, the developer’s wife, donated $100,000 to Abbott, according to state campaign finance records. That donation came just two days before the original deadline for states to nominate census tracts for opportunity zone status.

Then on March 21, the day of the deadline, Abbott wrote a letter to the Treasury Department nominating the area surrounding Colony Ridge to be designated a federal Opportunity Zone, according to records obtained by The Daily Wire, which asked Texas to produce all correspondence regarding the designation of the Colony Ridge development as an opportunity zone.

Two weeks later, on April 4, Harris and a local lawmaker named Brandon Creighton were Abbott’s guests for lunch at the governor’s mansion, according to meeting logs obtained through a records request. And just two days after the lunch meeting, on April 6, Abbott penned a second letter to the Treasury Department on the Opportunity Zone request. Four days later, on April 10, he sent a third letter to finalize his nomination of the census tracts to become Qualified Federal Opportunity Zones.

By July 9, 2018, the IRS had designated Colony Ridge and the surrounding land an Opportunity Zone.

Over the next four years, Harris would become one of Abbott’s biggest individual donors. Harris gave his first direct contribution to Abbott on June 25, 2018, around the time of the Opportunity Zone designation, to the tune of $100,000. All told, Trey and Celeste Harris would give $1.5 million to Abbott from 2018 to 2022, making Trey Harris Abbott’s 15th largest individual donor at the time.

As Trey Harris’ donations continued, so did his appearances at the governor’s mansion. On May 18, 2018, Trey Harris attended a “summer kickoff fiesta” at the governor’s mansion. He returned for a widely-attended December 11th, 2018, reception, and a more intimate, six-person dinner on December 4th, 2020, the meeting logs obtained by The Daily Wire show.

Greg Abbott Responds 

Abbott’s office disputes the notion that the letters to Treasury came due to his relationship with Harris alone. His spokesman, Andrew Mahaleris, provided letters from other individuals in the area advocating for the census tract, including Colony Ridge, to become an Opportunity Zone.

Mahaleris told The Daily Wire that the Opportunity Zone designation is not to blame for Colony Ridge’s problems, emphasizing steps Abbott has taken to address illegal immigration, environmental issues, and crime in the development.

“The Opportunity Zone designation did not create the problem in Colony Ridge. Governor Abbott is ensuring safety there and across the state. Governor Abbott directed the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to investigate any potential environmental issues in Colony Ridge, whether it be air, water, or land,” Mahaleris told The Daily Wire. “He requested the Attorney General’s office to issue subpoenas to investigate any legal violations, leading to Texas filing suit against the development.”

“The Governor also directed the Texas Department of Public Safety to deploy tactical strike teams to work alongside our federal partners to enforce immigration laws throughout the state, including in Colony Ridge. Governor Abbott also provided additional funding for enhanced law enforcement presence in Colony Ridge,” he added. “These teams will coordinate with Homeland Security agencies to track down the thousands of illegal immigrants with active warrants across Texas and deport them from our country.”

There is no evidence to suggest Abbott was aware of the Colony Ridge business model, which openly targets immigrant populations with the opportunity to “own land in the United States.”

The Daily Wire’s first report on Colony Ridge in September 2023 prompted Abbott to address the development. The governor called two different special sessions of the state legislature and urged lawmakers to consider bills “concerning public safety, security, environmental quality, and property ownership in areas like the Colony Ridge development.”

The special sessions resulted in the passage of legislation that dedicated up to $40 million for state troopers to patrol the development. The crime has not subsided — nearly 350 pounds of meth were recently seized from drug traffickers in the development, and authorities captured an MS-13 member and murder suspect in the development after he led them on a seven-hour manhunt. The El Salvadoran national had been deported from the United States seven times prior to his most recent arrest.

Trey Harris soured on Abbott at the outset of the controversy in 2023.

“He’s a politician, it is what it is, he’s got to cover his butt first,” the Colony Ridge developer told the New York Times. “But don’t expect a million dollars next year. It ain’t happening again, brother.”

Colony Ridge Capitalizes on Opportunity Zone Status

Colony Ridge has used its Opportunity Zone designation to attract investment. The designation allows investors to receive tax benefits if they maintain capital in an Opportunity Zone fund.

If you reinvest capital gains in an Opportunity Zone and maintain the investment for at least five years, you can exempt a portion of your gains from taxes. The longer you hold the investment, the bigger that portion grows — if you maintain it for a decade, it’s exempt from capital gains taxes altogether.

Tax Foundation senior policy analyst Alex Muresianu told The Daily Wire that the Opportunity Zone status would have fueled growth through “tax breaks for capital flowing into finance expansion, rather than through direct investment incentives for the current owner of the business.”

It made sure this benefit was front and center as it advertised land to commercial and industrial buyers. The development advertises to potential investors that its flagship Santa Fe masterplan is “located in an OPPORTUNITY zone!” and is the “fastest growing development in the U.S.”

Colony Ridge also says the Santa Fe masterplan — the largest of six subdivisions of the development — will be “30% Larger Than The Woodlands In Size and Population Upon Completion!” That’s a reference to the nearby affluent development with 117,000 residents, meaning it believes its largest subdivision alone would have more than 150,000 people.

In another advertisement, Colony Ridge boasts that it is selling land “located in an opportunity zone” and says that the population is “set to reach an impressive 250,000 upon completion.” Colony Ridge calls itself the “fastest growing community in Texas.”

Local outlet Houston Landing used satellite imagery to visualize the rapid growth of Colony Ridge from 2017 to 2024 — thanks to rapid development, there are more than 35,000 properties where there used to be almost nothing.

Some of the outside capital flowing into the development appears to have come from a real estate company with direct ties to the lawmaker who joined Harris for his April 4, 2018, lunch meeting at the governor’s mansion: State Senator Brandon Creighton.

The Creighton Connection

Neither Harris nor Abbott have addressed what was discussed at the lunch. Creighton, the third attendee at the lunch, told The Daily Wire that all he recalls is a discussion of “the history of the grounds” and “the property and the home itself.”

But Creighton, who represents the state senate district adjacent to Colony Ridge and recently became the senate’s president pro tempore, also happens to have an apparent financial interest in the development. Creighton is vice president and general counsel at a real estate development company, the Signorelli Company, where he’s worked since 2000.

The Signorelli Company is one of the leading home builders in Colony Ridge.

It detailed its Colony Ridge plans in an October 2019 press release that says the “privately-held homebuilding division of the Signorelli Company” would be building “affordably priced home offerings” in Colony Ridge.

“Developed by Colony Ridge Land, the Santa Fe masterplan is planned to consist of 6,400 restricted residential lots,” said the release for the massive development project. The Santa Fe masterplan, by far the largest of Colony Ridge’s subdivisions, is the same subdivision that the development advertises as being “located in an OPPORTUNITY zone!”

The Signorelli Company also owns another master plan, called Valley Ranch, a commercial property located in a nearby Opportunity Zone. Colony Ridge’s marketing brand, Terrenos Houston, advertises the Valley Ranch shopping center on its website.

When The Daily Wire questioned Creighton on the relationship between Colony Ridge and the Signorelli Company, the state senator said that he “wasn’t a part of any business discussion at the 2018 lunch,” and that “all developers in Texas should follow the law, state and federal.” He also went on to express support for border security measures.

But Creighton’s connections to Colony Ridge appear to run deeper. Creighton’s campaign took $5,000 from Harris in 2014, campaign finance records show.

And he has also received $17,000 from the political action committee of Coats Rose, the legal and lobbying firm that manages Colony Ridge’s municipal management district and municipal utility district, two political bodies awarded to Colony Ridge that have the power to tax residents for public services. Colony Ridge has spent anywhere from $221,750 to $482,879 from 2015 until the present for the services of Coats Rose lobbyists.

Creighton has drawn scrutiny in the past for his votes on legislation that benefits the Signorelli Company, a situation that one local outlet called “ethically complex.”

The senator has received $67,000 since 2018 from Daniel Signorelli, the President and CEO of the Signorelli Company, making him Creighton’s third-largest individual donor.

Colony Ridge vs. The United States

The revelations surrounding the relationship between Abbott, Creighton, and Colony Ridge come as the development faces legal problems in the wake of an investigative series from The Daily Wire. In 2023, the Department of Justice and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced a joint lawsuit against Colony Ridge, alleging that the sprawling development targeted Hispanic buyers with bait-and-switch sales and predatory financing practices, in violation of federal law.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton launched his own lawsuit against Colony Ridge, alleging that the development uses deceptive trade practices to churn buyers through a cycle of foreclosure. Paxton told The Daily Wire that “literally every sale” made by Colony Ridge could be fraudulent, with each violation coming with a penalty of at least $10,000. The financial penalties could prove to be an existential threat to the development.

Colony Ridge faces an ongoing investigation from the Environmental Protection Agency, the scope and results of which have yet to be made public. The development is also reportedly facing investigations from the IRS, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

The most dramatic action against Colony Ridge came earlier this year when ICE and the Texas Department of Public Safety carried out a day-long raid at the development, arresting 118 illegal aliens.

Abbott said he spent months helping to coordinate the raid. Prior to the enforcement actions, Border Czar Tom Homan also met with the area’s State Representative, Janis Holt.

“Addressing the challenges posed by Colony Ridge requires coordinated efforts at the federal, state and local levels,” Holt wrote after the meeting. “I enjoyed my conversation with Border Czar Tom Homan. We will coordinate with his office and attack this issue head on.”

Holt replaced former State Representative Ernest Bailes after The Daily Wire exposed his connections to Colony Ridge. Bailes took thousands in political donations from Harris, and was intimately involved in the development’s formation. He lost in a primary to Holt.

Monte Harris Lane, who is the developer’s cousin, told The Daily Wire that he believes the federal allegations, based on what he knows about the operation.

Lane’s brother is the main foreclosure agent for Colony Ridge. Lane says his brother bragged about Colony Ridge’s practice of reselling foreclosed lots for a profit after defaulted borrowers made improvements to the property.

“They just flip it and if they’ve added any type of improvements like water, septic, things of that nature, the property is worth more. They just … sell it,” he said.

“They’re selling out Texas, America, and the Constitution and our freedom and liberties for money,” Monte Harris Lane, a cousin of Harris, told The Daily Wire. “I think my grandpa would turn over in his grave.”

A representative for Colony Ridge declined to provide a comment for this story, citing the pending lawsuits.

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