Gov. Greg Abbott issued a statement on Friday, condemning the Biden administration’s most recent efforts to secure the southern border as “feckless.”
President Joe Biden and the Department of Homeland Security recently announced policy changes that would deny certain potentially illegal aliens asylum earlier in the process. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas claimed the change would help by “more quickly identifying and removing those individuals who present a security risk and have no legal basis to remain here.”
“We will continue to take action, but fundamentally, it is only Congress that can fix what everyone agrees is a broken immigration system,” Mayorkas said, according to a press release.
Abbott was critical of the effort, stating that it would not do anything to slow the rate of illegal aliens entering the country. He claimed that Biden inherited the most secure border with the lowest rate of illegal immigration since the last century.
“With the stroke of a pen, he proudly ended those secure border policies and opened the border to more than 11 million illegal immigrants from more than 150 different countries—including known terrorists, murderers, and rapists. Now, desperately grasping to salvage his failed presidency, President Biden attempts the most minimal action possible, hoping to mask the crisis he created,” the governor said in a press release.
“To be clear, President Biden’s feckless proposals, which he could have done years ago, do nothing to slow the record-breaking illegal immigration. Most notably, President Biden sidesteps actually enforcing the laws already enacted by Congress. President Biden is not just authorized — he is required — to deny illegal entry, detain illegal immigrants, and build border barriers,” Abbott said.
Abbott’s comments come as the United States continues to deal with a crisis along the southern border due to the significant influx of illegal aliens crossing into the country since Biden took office in 2021.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has reported more than 7.9 million encounters with illegal aliens during this timeframe, with the House Homeland Security Committee reporting in October 2023 that there had been an additional 1.7 million who have crossed without being detected by border patrol.
The Lone Star State has attempted to manage this crisis through a busing program that transports illegal aliens to sanctuary cities across the country. More than 116,000 have been bused to other cities since the program began in April 2022, according to a press release from the governor’s office.
Abbott claimed in the statement that the various measures taken by the state of Texas through its Operation Lone Star initiative have led to a “substantial decline in illegal immigration into Texas while it remains on the rise in other border states.”
“Operation Lone Star is working, and President Biden would do well to follow our lead or get out of the way,” he added.
