Texas-based Border Patrol sectors are saddled with nearly 70 percent of the 172,011 migrants apprehended at the U.S. southern border, according to Breitbart.
At a summit in Del Rio, Texas, Governor Greg Abbott announced sweeping new border security and law enforcement measures late last week to deal with the crisis.
“The influx across the border is out of control, and the Biden Administration has shown that is not going to step up and do its job,” the governor stated in a one-on-one interview with Breitbart Texas shortly before the kickoff of the governor’s border security summit on June 10.
“Amidst reports of even more people coming in across the border, we know we have to step up and do more,” he added.
“We want to be very aggressive in working with local officials and begin making mass arrests,” Abbott stated. “In working in collaboration with a large number of counties — that means we’re going to be arresting a lot more people.”
Border Patrol agents in El Paso, Laredo, Del Rio, Rio Grande Valley and Big Bend sectors apprehended 118,036 of the 172,011 (68.6 percent) illegal migrants in May, according to the May Southwest Land Border Encounters report released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection late Wednesday night.
The report stated that in year-to-date figures, agents arrested 605,133 of the 897,213 (67 percent) since October 1, 2020.
The governor said authorities will use existing resources under a state of emergency declaration to crack down on those illegally crossing the border.
“If you come to Texas, you’re subject to being arrested,” Abbott stated. “You’re not going to have a pathway to roam the country. You’re going to have a pathway directly into a jail cell.”
Abbott’s aggressive plan includes the resumed construction of the border wall and will also include “mass arrests” of migrants who violate state laws.
Because the state has identified many locations where migrants can easily walk across unsecured sections of the border and enter the private property along the Rio Grande, new border wall sections will to be built by the state of Texas.
“Immediately, we will put up barriers there,” Abbott explained. “One reason to do that is that if they move or interfere with that barrier, they have committed several (state) crimes.”
“One is they’ve committed criminal mischief, as well as vandalism of state property or local government property,” Abbott continued. “And that barrier is information to them that if they cross that barrier, they have trespassed.”
President Biden’s border policy has failed.
“The Biden Administration’s policies are the most reckless, reprehensible, and dangerous of any president I’ve ever seen.” Abbot said.
Because of this, Abbott said in a press release that he expanded the existing “Operation Lone Star” to “include efforts to crack down on human trafficking related to illegal border crossings. As part of this expansion, Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) troopers and agents, as well as the Texas Rangers, will conduct interviews with unaccompanied minors who crossed the border to identify victims of human trafficking and gain actionable intelligence that will aid in the arrest of traffickers.”
Biden’s reckless open border policies have created a humanitarian crisis, he said.
"President Biden’s reckless open border policies have created a humanitarian crisis that is enriching the cartels, smugglers, and human traffickers who often prey on and abuse unaccompanied minors,” said Governor Abbott in a press release. “Americans deserve to know what the Biden administration is doing to investigate the surge of unaccompanied minors crossing the border and to protect those who are victims of human trafficking.”
“It’s clear that that’s not enough to deter the flow,” the governor said. “So, the state will provide many more resources, but we need to understand that just providing more resources alone is not going to be enough. We need to provide new strategies, new tools to address these challenges.”
“In the end, only the federal government and Congress can fix this, but as it stands right now, the state of Texas is going to step up and we’re going to start making arrests — sending a message to anybody thinking about coming here, you’re not going to get a free pass to the U.S.- they’re getting a straight pass to a jail cell.”
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