Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott on Sunday accused President Joe Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas of being “in dereliction of duty” for the massive wave of migrants at the. border.
In an interview on “Fox News Sunday,” Abbott vowed the state of Texas would continue on its own to ”arrest and jail people who are coming across the border trespassing into areas into the state of Texas.”
“Because the Biden administration is refusing to do its duty to enforce the laws of the United States, they have left Texas in no position other than for us to step up and do what we have to do,” he said.
“Del Rio was overrun by a population [of Haitian migrants] about the same size of Del Rio that had been coming across the border illegally,” he said. “As governor, I’m not going to let that happen. I’m going to step up and do whatever I have to do to make sure that I protect the people of Del Rio as well as all these other communities in the state of Texas that the Biden administration is ignoring.”
According to Abbott, as soon as the National Guard and officers from the Texas Dept. of Public Safety showed up at the border with “hundreds if not thousands of vehicles, that is when the illegal migration stopped. That’s exactly what the Biden administration could do if they wanted.”
He added it would be “the kind of thing that Texas is going to have to continue to do” — and that there would be no “catch and release.”
“Secretary Mayorkas, even president Biden, they are in dereliction of duty,” he declared.
“They have created a magnet that led to these massive groups of Haitians, as well as the other groups that are coming here for one reason, and that’s because they have sent a message and a signal to the entire world that they are not going to secure the border, they are going to allow them across,” Abbott said.
Abbott said the administration knew Haitians had gathered on the Mexican side of the border before they crossed “and the Biden administration did nothing to stop those Haitians who had gathered en masse in Mexico from coming across the border.”
Abbott also vowed that Texas would hire any Border Patrol agents who get fired over images showing the apparent whipping of Haitian immigrants by officers on horseback.
“They wouldn’t have been in that situation had the Biden administration enforce the immigration laws and secure the border in the first place,” he said, adding, “the characterization that the Democrats have made about the border patrol using them as whipping people coming across the border is false. They were simply maneuvering horses.”
“I have worked side-by-side with those Border Patrol agents,” he added. “I want them to know something. If they are at risk of losing their job and a president who is abandoning his duty to secure the border, you have a job in the state of Texas, I will hire you to help Texas secure our border.”
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