In just a few short months, the Biden administration has deliberately and systematically undone Donald Trump’s successful border security and immigration policies. Now, Texas faces an invasion of illegal immigrants, many bringing drugs, crime, and chaos in their wake.
Just last month, Customs and Border Protection apprehended over 180,000 people crossing illegally—a 674 percent increase from the year previous. Val Verde County is just one of many Texas jurisdictions suffering acutely from this crisis. Its fewer than 50,000 residents have seen more than 100,000 illegal aliens enter their community this year.
The abdication of federal leadership leaves Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas to make the most important decision an elected leader can make: How to protect the people of his state? Complicating matters is the fact the Biden administration’s policies are the chief driver of the current crisis, and that the federal government retains significant immigration authority. Yet the security of Texans, and perhaps the entire United States, now hinges in large measure on what actions Abbott takes to protect his state.
His first major steps have been well received by Texans.
On June 1, he issued a disaster declaration for the 34 counties on the state’s southern border. The declaration surges resources, allows for more flexibility of certain jail spacing requirements, and authorizes the Texas Department of Public Safety to increase enforcement of state criminal laws such as trespassing, evading law enforcement, smuggling, and human trafficking. It also orders the Texas Health and Human Services Commissions to discontinue state licensing of facilities that house children who have entered the state illegally. The cartels and coyotes use children to create false family units; their heartless exploitation of children has been a key driver of this crisis.
On June 14, Abbott announced Texas would resume building the border wall “to make sure that anybody coming here will understand: Texas is the wrong state to come into.”
Abbott clearly understands that there are no perfect and easy solutions to the border crisis. An all-of-the-above strategy is needed. These initiatives will run into some problems right away.
