Texas Governor Greg Abbott is apparently willing to do the job that Joe Biden refuses to do. Abbott announced a slew of initiatives on Thursday, including his plan to build a wall along the state’s border with Mexico.
Texas is getting serious about border security — something the national government in Washington, D.C. has failed to do. The state is allocating a billion dollars to fund border initiatives and will establish a Governor’s Task Force on Border and Homeland Security with public safety and state government officials.
The goals of the task force will be to curtain people and contraband from crossing the border into Texas. And there will be more arrests.
“They don’t want to come to across the state of Texas anymore because it’s not what they were expecting,” Abbott said. “It’s not the red carpet that the federal administration rolled out to them.”
He also announced an interstate compact with Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey to resolve the border “crisis,” and called on other states to do the same.
Abbott’s announcement comes after Republican former state Sen. Don Huffines said he will challenge the governor in next year’s GOP primary — and as part of his campaign also promised to finish border wall construction in Texas.
“We will completely shut down the border until the crisis is solved and eliminate all taxpayer-funded subsidies to illegal aliens,” Huffines said. “I am not afraid to take on the federal government.”
Huffines is talking politics, not reality. The state would lose billions of dollars if the border were “completely shut down” so that’s not going to happen.
Most of the border wall constructed during the Trump administration occurred in Arizona, leaving large swaths of the Rio Grande valley relatively open. The Border Patrol has virtual coverage along most of the border, but little in the way of physical barriers.
On Thursday,Abbott didn’t address the ongoing conflict between himself and the Biden administration that escalated this week after federal officials threatened to sue Texas over Abbott’s order to strip certain shelters for migrant children of their state licenses, which could force the shelter operators — which operate under contracts with the federal government — to move the children elsewhere.
The 52 state-licensed shelters house roughly 8,600 children, according to data from the state. In a letter to Texas officials Monday, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services attorney Paul Rodriguez asked Texas to clarify Abbott’s order and said it could violate the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, which states that federal law overrides state laws. He gave Texas until Friday to respond.
“The border crisis is no laughing matter,” Abbott said. “This is something that also is not a tourism site for members of Congress to make an annual pilgrimage to and see the border, and then go back and do absolutely nothing at the federal government level to solve the crisis.”
Abbott makes a good point. Even pro-border security congressmen have been coming to the border for photo-ops and little else.
If Biden isn’t going to get serious about problems on the border, then governors will have to do whatever they legally can to protect their citizens.
It isn’t just illegal immigration that threatens public safety. It’s what’s coming over the border with them.
Abbott has blamed the recent surge of migrants to the Texas-Mexico border on the Biden administration’s immigration policies, claiming in a disaster declaration this week that new federal policies have paved the way for “dangerous gangs and cartels, human traffickers, and deadly drugs like fentanyl to pour into our communities.”
Just last week, Abbott deployed more than 1000 state troopers and national guardsmen to try and slow down the human trafficking gangs, who are sending children and young girls north to be sold into slavery — or worse. If the federal government doesn’t want to protect the most vulnerable among us, who will?
Abbott will release further details of his planned border wall next week including where it will be constructed and how much it will cost.
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