Gov. Greg Abbott says Texas will build border wall on its own amid Biden’s ‘willful, wanton disregard for laws’
Thomas McDonald
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Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced he has allocated $1 billion in his state’s fiscal year budget towards border security and part of that money will be used to resume construction of former President Donald Trump’s border wall.
“To make a fine point on it, we have to build a border wall,” said Abbott. “I’ve been down here talking to the people in the Rio Grande Valley and the way they are being overrun is reprehensible, it’s disastrous what the Biden administration has done.”
Abbott criticized Biden for revoking Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy which was forged under the previous administration with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. “Remain in Mexico” was greatly attributed to the decrease in border crossings under President Trump due to holding asylum seekers in Mexico while they await their hearings in the United States.
“[Trump] began building the border wall and now suddenly all of that disappeared and,…it has led to a dramatic increase in the number of people crossing the border but it’s not just unaccompanied minors, it’s people were causing great damage and harm to the residents right here in Del Rio,” Abbott said.
Under Abbott’s state of emergency declaration, the Texas Department of Public Safety can increase penalties for crimes such as trespassing, on which police will elevate the number of arrests of illegal immigrants intruding into Texans’ land.
“We’re going to take this very seriously, we’re going to do everything possible to secure our border, including building a border wall,” he said, adding that further details regarding the project will be released later next week.
Abbott criticized Vice President Kamala Harris for her refusal to visit the border and address the ongoing migrant crisis. “The Biden administration has abandoned the border [and] any pretense of border security, any pretense of enforcing our immigration laws. They’ve laughed it off just the exact same way that the vice president laughed it off in that interview the other day, and so it is a joke to the Biden administration,” he said.
“But we are not taking it as a joke in Texas. We are going to step up and respond the way we must respond to secure the sovereignty our state, to prevent the invasion that’s taken place in front of our very own eyes,” he added.