Texas counties have urged Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to declare “an invasion” at the U.S.-Mexico border as migrants continue to pour into the country.
Abbott issued an executive order to authorize the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Texas National Guard to apprehend migrants and legally deport them to their country of origin. The governor did not declare the crisis at the southern border an invasion despite several calls by Texas counties to take that particular action.
“The Biden administration won’t do a thing about it,” said Kinney County Judge Tully Shahan, according to the Texas Tribune. “We’re in over our head. We need help and we need for Attorney General Ken Paxton and our governor to adopt an invasion under its definition in the constitution. Adopt that invasion and let’s move forward.”
County officials cited increased crime, property damage and endangerment for citizens as reasons to declare an invasion, the Tribune reported. In Kinney County, Border Patrol has arrested hundreds of migrants for trespassing.
Legal experts have been widely skeptical of declaring an invasion, believing it to be a political ploy and could lead state law enforcement to face federal prosecution, the Tribune reported.
Abbott signed agreements with four Mexican governors in April in order for Mexico to ramp up their response to the flow of migrants attempting to cross the border. Mexican officials, however, have reportedly not complied with these agreements.
The governor told Daily Caller field reporter Jorge Ventura that Texas may hold Mexico accountable in the near future. He added that the governor of Coahuila, Miguel Angel Riquelme Solis, has taken strident efforts to disband the caravans, but faces his president’s inaction to the crisis.
“His challenge is the same as my challenge: and that’s the president of his country,” he said.
A group of over 100 migrants, mostly of Venezuelan origin, lined up at the border in Eagle Pass, Texas. The migrants crossed the Rio Grande river from Piedras Negras, Mexico, into Texas just two hours after Abbott held a press conference in the area.
“We pressed the governor, what is he doing to hold the Mexican governors accountable for continuing to allow these groups to cross illegally,” Ventura said. “According to his agreement, these Mexican governors were supposed to stop the flow. But as you guys can see, we’re not seeing that.” (RELATED: Republican Gubernatorial Candidate Vows To Declare ‘Invasion,’ Deploy Troops To Border On Day One)
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) encountered 239,416 migrants at the southern border in May, steadily rising from the 235,478 encountered in April and 222,339 in March, according to data. Over 1.5 million migrants have been encountered at the border from year-to-date in 2022.
Abbott has previously criticized President Joe Biden’s administration for implementing lax policies in regards to illegal border crossings.
“As long as we’re fighting against the government that’s causing the problem with illegal immigration, as long as I’m having to fight back against the Biden administration that has these open border policies, we’re gonna be swimming upstream every single day,” the governor told Ventura in May. “And we’re going to be utilizing every single tool that we can including increased assistance, I would say unprecedented assistance from our partners in Mexico.”
Mexican authorities have facilitated the influx of illegal immigration by feeding migrants misinformation and disinformation regarding U.S. border policies. Migrants have said that Title 42, a Trump-era COVID-19 protocol allowing for the expulsion of nearly 1.7 million migrants, had been lifted. A Honduran man previously told Ventura that he made the dangerous journey after being told the border was open.
