Abbott steps up his attack on Biden’s border policy

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On Wednesday, Governor Greg Abbott sharply attacked President Joe Biden on the immigration issue, telling delegates at the Republican National Convention that the current administration has neglected its duty to keep the country safe and falsely crediting former President Donald Trump with “eliminating illegal immigration.”

“Biden neglected his duty on his first day in office,” Abbott told thousands of delegates in Milwaukee. “He gutted President Trump’s policies, and the result was disastrous.”

Abbott also announced that he would continue sending migrants to so-called “sanctuary cities” in northern states such as New York and Illinois. This policy has cost Texas taxpayers at least $148 million since it was announced in 2022.

“When Joe Biden and Kamala Harris refused to even come to Texas to see the border crisis, I showed them the border,” he said. “… We have continued to bus migrants to sanctuary cities across the country. Those buses will keep running until we finally secure our border.”

Abbott also reiterated his support for Trump. “He will enforce immigration laws,” Abbott said. “He will fight the Mexican drug cartels. And he will arrest the criminal illegal immigrants and put them behind bars or send them back.”

Abbott’s appearance capped a series of speeches that focused heavily on immigration and portrayed migrants as criminals who had “infiltrated” the U.S.-Mexico border. It came amid the ongoing aftermath of Hurricane Beryl, which left tens of thousands of Southeast Texans without power for days. Since the storm made landfall earlier this month, Abbott has faced criticism for his economic development trip to Asia – a decision he defended. He missed the first two days of Congress, which began Monday to grapple with the storm’s aftermath.

Abbott’s speech came days after U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced that the number of migrants apprehended by federal authorities fell 32 percent in June, one of the first figures released since Biden’s executive order, which took effect on June 5, largely halted the granting of asylum to migrants.

Biden’s order was a response to arrests in Texas, which peaked at 54,172 in March but declined in subsequent months. Across the southern border, arrests this year peaked at 140,628 in February – a sharp drop from the Border Patrol’s record high of 249,785 arrests in December.

In his speech, Abbott also praised his decision to send thousands of Texas Department of Public Safety and National Guard troops to the border as part of Operation Lone Star, a program he launched in March 2021 – two months after Biden took office – to address what he said was inadequate federal immigration enforcement. The mission has so far cost Texas taxpayers $11 billion.

In three and a half years, the state has strung rows of barbed wire along the Rio Grande, built improvised walls out of shipping containers and begun construction on an 80-acre military base in Eagle Pass that will house up to 2,300 troops.

Although there were no clear progress figures or accountability during the operation, Abbott has credited Operation Lone Star with the recent decline in illegal border crossings through Texas. But foreign policy analysts say migration patterns are complicated and not easily explained by a single variable. They point, for example, to record numbers of illegal border crossings along the Texas-Mexico border during the first three years of the operation before migration shifted to California and Arizona this spring.

On Wednesday, delegates took a much less nuanced approach, instead chanting “Send her back!” during Abbott’s speech.

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