Abbott calls in National Guard to push back against illegal immigrants.
QUICK FACTS:
- Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) announced Tuesday he was invoking his state’s “invasion clauses” that would allow him to call in the National Guard to assist at the border.
- The Republican governor also plans to use the forces to construct a border wall and deploy gunboats.
- Abbott said he will “fully authorize Texas to take unprecedented measures to defend our state against an invasion.”
- The Department of Public Safety is also being called to the border to arrest and return illegal immigrants who have crossed into Texas illegally.
ABBOTT’S ANNOUNCEMENT:
- “I invoked the Invasion Clauses of the U.S. [and the] Texas Constitutions” to make the declaration, Abbott wrote on social media. “I’m using that constitutional authority [and] other authorization [and] Executive Orders to keep our state [and] country safe.”
- The governor included bullet points to outline his plan which stated that he would “deploy the national guard to safeguard our border & to repel & turn back immigrants trying to cross the border illegally.”
- “Deploy the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) to arrest & return to the border immigrants who crossed illegally & deploy DPS to arrest illegal immigrants for criminal activity; build a border wall in multiple counties on the border; deploy gun boars to secure the border; designate Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations; enter into a compact with other states to secure the border; enter into agreements with foreign powers to enhance border security; & provide resources for border counties to increase their effort s to respond to the border invasion.”
BACKGROUND:
- An estimated 5.5 million illegal aliens have crossed the United States border since Biden took office.
- The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) put out the estimate, with FAIR president Dan Stein adding that their projections estimate that the immigrants have cost taxpayers around $20 billion.