Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott blasted President Joe Biden on Tuesday for his new executive order on the continual southern border crisis, labeling it as a way to gaslight Americans.
Abbott appeared on “Hannity” to discuss Biden’s newly unveiled order in which he is seeking to pause asylum requests after migrant numbers at the U.S.-Mexico border hit a daily average of 2,500 within a week. If the daily numbers fall back to 1,500 then requests can resume. (RELATED: Biden Unveils Immigration Executive Order After Months Of Insisting There’s Nothing He Could Do)
Prior to Biden’s announcement, the administration and Texas officials have been at odds since last year due to legal battles on the state’s rights to protecting their border as illegal crossing numbers have risen. Fox host Sean Hannity questioned the Texas governor on his reaction to the executive order, noting how the Lone Star state has fought to aid their borders.
“Well first of all to your latter point, the Biden administration can try to do whatever they want to try to do. Texas is not going to back off of what we’re doing to actually secure the border. We built a border wall, we’ve erected hundreds of miles of razor wire barrier,” Abbott stated.
“Get this, the numbers are astounding. While illegal immigration is increasing [in] California, Arizona, and New Mexico by about 20% or 25%, in Texas it has gone down about 74% because of the resistance that we’ve put up. But know this, what Biden announced today is nothing more than gaslighting his fellow Americans, because there is nothing in the announcement today that actually shows any enforcement of any immigration law that denies illegal entry into the country. He talks about trying to have this asylum process and changing the rules that actually will allow more people in.”
“What Biden did today was actually entice more people to come to our border, to increase illegal immigration — not to stop it. He’s not using any tool or strategy to deny illegal immigration. Importantly there were three laws that exist that Biden is not enforcing. One is to deny illegal entry, the other is to detain illegal immigrants that do make it here, the third is to build border barriers. He’s choosing not to do any of that, instead he’s had open border policies that have led to more than 10 million illegal immigrants into our country,” Abbott stated.
The battle over Texas’ southern border increased as tensions between the state and officials heightened as the Supreme Court ruled at the time that the Biden Administration was allowed to remove razor wire from the border, which was put up by state officials to slow the number of crossings. Both the Department of Homeland Security and Texas officials argued over the strategy of using the razor wire, however, the state refused to budge on their stance and left the razor wire along with remaining control over the border.
