Texas Republican Lieutenant Gov. Dan Patrick ripped President Joe Biden’s southern border guidance Thursday on Fox News and laid out what the Lone Star state would do instead.
Patrick appeared on “The Ingraham Angle” to discuss Biden’s recent visit to the southern border in Brownsville, Texas on Thursday in order to address the ongoing immigration crisis. Following a clip from Biden’s speech during his visit, Patrick quickly jumped in to call out the president for having “no clue” what he was “talking about.” (RELATED: Biden Visits One Of Border’s Slowest Sectors To Blame Congress, Talk Climate Change)
“Laura, he doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about. Not a clue,” Patrick said. “I was asked the other day what three things should we do today if Texas was in charge. Number one, we’d put back Title 42 – the Trump policy that kept the asylum seekers in Mexico. Number two, like President Trump did, you go to Mexico and you tell the president that if you don’t stick the army, their marines, on their side of the border and stop this, you are going to put a tariff on everything they sell. And, third, you take our great border patrol men and women and instead of treating them like hotel clerks, ushering people in the door, you let them do their job of law enforcement.”
“We have a Senate Bill 4 that was pushed back in court yesterday locally,” Patrick continued. “It will win in the fifth circuit. It will go to the Supreme Court and it will allow Texas, Laura, Texas to defend our own border. We will hire every one of these border patrol agents who want to come to work for us. We’ve got the money, they’ll come to work for us. We’ll tell Joe Biden and the federal government to get the hell out of the way and we’ll secure the border for America. Because we must stop. People are dying every day at the hands of Joe Biden’s policies.”
U.S. District Judge David Ezra issued a preliminary injunction to halt Senate Bill 4 which had been originally scheduled to take effect Tuesday, according to the Texas Tribune. The original legislation was signed by the state’s Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in December 2023.
Data from the U.S. Border Patrol recorded more than 1.7 million encounters of illegal immigrants crossing within 2023, and releasing more than 824,000 into the U.S. as they await a future court date. Federal authorities seized over 229,000 pounds of drugs at the southern border, which included 22,000 pounds of fentanyl, according to data.