Perry: If the Feds Don't Secure Texas' Border, Then Texas Will

Outgoing Texas Gov. Rick Perry appeared on Glenn Beck’s BlazeTV Thursday to discuss the border crisis.

The governor said that increased state operations have “shut down” illegal activities in some border sectors, but not all. But what has been accomplished is not enough. Clearly.

“But I think there’s a point in time where you say, ‘You know what? This 1,200 mile border has to be secured.’ And if there is a people and if there is a place that it can happen, it will be Texas,” Perry said.

Perry also noted that for all the press that the unaccompanied children who have crossed the border are getting, they are far from the whole story. The UAC’s only comprise 20% of the total number who have crossed since the surge in illegal crossings began.

“80 percent of those coming across, we don’t know who they are,” Gov. Perry told Beck. “In Katy, Texas yesterday an individual was apprehended who had murdered an individual in Louisiana.”

Perry will not return as governor of Texas in January 2015. He may run for president again. Republican Greg Abbott is the odds-on favorite to replace Perry in Austin.

The international border is primarily a federal responsibility, but the state government and local governments along the border also share that responsibility. For Texans, securing the border is one of the few things that we want the federal government to do. And it clearly is not getting the job done.