On Monday, Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott slammed President Joe Biden’s “lackluster leadership” and promised to maintain a “law-and-order state” by working to secure the border.
“Texans demand and deserve an aggressive, comprehensive strategy to secure our border—not President Biden’s lackluster leadership,” Abbott said during a speech at the Texas Border Sheriffs Coalition Spring Meetings in El Paso.
“As the federal government continues to roll back commonsense policies that once kept our communities safe, our local law enforcement has stepped up to protect Texans from dangerous criminals, deadly drugs, and illegal contraband flooding into the Lone Star State. Texas will always be a law-and-order state, and I thank our law enforcement officers who have answered the call to protect and serve their fellow Texans in the federal government’s absence in securing our border,” he added.
Great to speak with the Texas Border Sheriffs Coalition in El Paso today.
Texas will always be a law & order state.
I thank our law enforcement officers who have answered the call to protect & serve their fellow Texans in the federal government's absence in securing our border. pic.twitter.com/V6G5bFb6UF
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) April 11, 2022
Abbott’s office noted multiple recent actions the Texas Governor has taken to try to strengthen border security, including “Signing laws that provide $3 billion in funding for Texas’ border security efforts” and “Launching Operation Lone Star and deploying thousands of National Guard soldiers and Texas Department of Public Safety troopers.”
The governor also approved “Arresting and jailing illegal migrants trespassing or committing other state crimes in Texas.” And “Allocated resources that include recently acquired 1,700 steel panels to building the border wall in Texas.”
Abbott’s comments come shortly after the Biden administration announced it would be ending Title 42 – a Trump-era border security policy – in May. The end of the policy is expected to further worsen the illegal immigration crisis at the border. According to a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) document obtained by ABC News, the end of Title 42 will lead to as many as 18,000 migrants attempting to illegally cross the southern border each day.
“The DHS Office of Immigration Statistics (OIS) produced projections for post-Title 42 Southwest Border encounters describing low, medium, high, or very high encounter scenarios,” the document says. “These scenarios underpin planning assumptions that generate requirements which in turn drive operational execution. Based on these projections the SBCC is currently planning for 6,000, 12,000 (high) and 18,000 (very high) encounters per day.”
