Texas Governor Greg Abbott took “unprecedented measures” to stop thousands of migrants crossing into Texas by parking Texas National Guard vehicles and Texas Department of Public Safety vehicles near the U.S.-Mexico border.
“We put hundreds of Texas Department of Public Safety cars and created a steel wall — a steel wall of DPS vehicles — that prevented anybody from crossing that dam that you’ve seen people walk across,” Abbott told Fox News Tuesday. “We effectively … regained control of the border.”
Many thousands of migrants are sleeping in the dirt under the bridge in makeshift shelters, while they wait for U.S. immigration authorities to process their applications. Abbott blames President Joe Biden for the current situation and says the federal government isn’t doing enough to protect the country’s southern borders.
“When you have an administration that is not enforcing the law in this country, when you have an administration that has abandoned any pretense of securing the border and securing our sovereignty, you see the onrush of people like what we saw walking across this dam that is right behind me,” Abbott said at a news conference in Val Verde County.
Last week, government officials began parking their cars at the border.
“The Texas Department of Public Safety is in full force along the border around the Del Rio area. They have built a barricade with their squad cars and State Troopers. The National Guard is working with them to secure the border,” Abbott tweeted.
He added in a statement that “one day there were countless people coming across the border, then the DPS put up all these vehicles, and suddenly, in an instant, people stopped crossing the border in this location. That strategy is working.”
Texas will spend $2 billion more on border security.
“It has been the state of Texas that has had to step up,” Abbott said. “Failure to enforce laws that exist in the United States leads to chaos and chaos leads to inhumanity.”
