Governor Abbott welcomed President Biden to the Southern border Sunday afternoon by accusing him of conducting a “sanitized” visit designed to shield him from the chaos unleashed by his immigration policies.
When Biden disembarked from Air Force One, Abbott greeted him with a scathing letter blasting his mishandling of the border crisis and calling the trip “$20 billion too little and two years too late.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott says Biden’s visit to the border is “two years and about $20 billion too late.” pic.twitter.com/I22QEEGxoE
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) January 8, 2023
Abbott claimed Biden’s itinerary, part of a diplomatic tour with Canada and Mexico’s leaders, “avoids the sites where mass illegal immigration occurs and sidesteps the thousands of angry Texas property owners whose lives have been destroyed by your border policies.”
“President Biden’s border visit today is to a sanitized version of El Paso. He has no plans to enforce federal immigration laws,” Abbott tweeted shortly after meeting with the president during his long-awaited trip, the first since he’s made since assuming office. “Biden’s plan will only entice MORE illegal crossings. Texas will continue our historic border mission to protect our state.”
El Paso, Abbott said, was cleared of migrant camps that occupied the downtown area before Biden’s arrival. “When you finish the photo-ops in a carefully stage-managed version of El Paso,” there is a responsibility to enforce the immigration laws on the books, Abbott said.
The Texas governor presented five immediate action items, demanding that the Biden administration comply with detainment statutes for migrants, stop paroling illegal aliens en masse, reimplement the Remain-in-Mexico policy and Title 42 expulsions, prosecute illegal entry between ports of entry, and allow ICE to remove aliens.
Construction of the border wall must urgently be finished in Texas, “using the billions of dollars Congress has appropriated for that purpose,” Abbott argued. Finally, he urged the president to classify the Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist groups.
Speaking to reporters on a tarmac in El Paso, Abbott also said the Biden administration has an obligation to reimburse Texas for the money it’s spent on border enforcement. “This is all for show,” Abbott said of Biden’s visit. Biden told the governor he wanted to collaborate with Texas on getting the border under control, Abbott said.
Title 42, the pandemic-era policy that allowed the government to expel migrants to prevent the spread of communicable diseases, currently remains temporarily in place under Supreme Court ruling, slightly tempering the flood of migrants pouring over the border. Even with the rule intact, however, current daily migrant apprehensions run at about 7,000 a day. That number doesn’t include the extra 2,000-odd “got-aways” who evade capture as they enter.
If Title 42 is eliminated, the rate of illegal immigration could explode, doubling or even tripling from current levels, experts project. Biden has received intense criticism for not visiting the border sooner, with the migrant influxes overwhelming local towns, border agents, and supply centers.