Gov. Greg Abbott, R-Texas, is fighting back against the Biden administration, which temporarily denied the state from shutting down points of entry at the border, opting instead to direct Texas National Guard and Texas Department of Public Safety to “maintain their presence” at or around ports of entry to deter further illegal crossings.
Abbott wrote in a statement that the Biden Administration “flip-flopped” and backpedaled, going from requesting help from the state government to secure the border, to a botched strategy that “abandons border security and instead makes it easier for people to cross illegally and for cartels to exploit the border.”
The Texas governor also compared the mishandling of the southern border to the botched withdrawal of troops and American citizens/allies from Afghanistan. “The Biden Administration is in complete disarray and is handling the border crisis as badly as the evacuation from Afghanistan,” Gov. Abbott said.
The Biden administration appears to be trying to tackle several situations at once, but failing to provide working solutions to all of them.
The border crisis continues to delve into a humanitarian crisis with more than 10,000 illegal migrants apprehended – a number that continues to quickly rise. Thousands of these migrants have been placed into makeshift camps under a highway bridge connecting the city of Del Rio with Mexico’s Ciudad Acuña, as an attempt to keep them all under control.
The situation became dire on Thursday when the mayor of Del Rio, Texas announced the number of migrants arrested at the border went from 8,200 in the morning, to more than 10,500 by the evening. That number is representative of at least one-third of Americans who legally reside in Del Rio.
Border Patrol facilities along the state line are overwhelmed and hold no additional space to hold thousands of these migrants at their detention centers, posing safety and health concerns both to the migrants and surrounding communities.
Most of the migrants crossing over are Haitians as well as Venezuelans, Cubans, and Nicaraguans.
Also contributing to the humanitarian crisis are ongoing high summer temperatures. Because migrants have received scarce sources of food and water, Reuters reported that many of them have been crossing back-and-forth across the border into Ciudad Acuña to stock up on essentials and then coming back to the camp under the international bridge as they await any further processing from U.S. enforcement officials.
The month of August alone saw an uptick of 208,887 migrants apprehended at the southern border, representing a 317 percent increase from August 2020.
While there is uncertainty regarding how the Biden administration will address the humanitarian crisis rapidly unfolding at the border, one thing Americans can take solace in is that the state of Texas is deployed and ready to assist in enhancing border security however they can achieve it.