Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, warning of an “imminent threat of disaster” at the border, ordered the National Guard to assist other Lone Star State law enforcement officials with arresting immigrants illegally crossing into the US.
“To respond to this disaster and secure the rule of law at our Southern border, more manpower is needed — in addition to the troopers from the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) and soldiers from the Texas National Guard I have already deployed there — and DPS needs help in arresting those who are violating state law,” Abbott said in a letter sent Tuesday to Major Gen. Tracy Norris of the Texas Military Department.
In the letter, Abbott said the “surge of individuals unlawfully crossing the Texas-Mexico border poses an ongoing and imminent threat of disaster for certain counties and agencies in the State of Texas.”
Exercising his power as the commander-in-chief of military forces in the Lone Star State, Abbott said he is ordering “the Texas National Guard [to] assist DPS in enforcing Texas law by arresting lawbreakers at the border.”
The letter builds on an order Abbott issued in June directing the Texas Department of Public Safety to enforce all state and federal laws, including criminal trespassing, smuggling and human trafficking, to “combat criminal activities stemming from the border crisis.”
”President Biden’s open-border policies have paved the way for dangerous gangs and cartels, human traffickers, and deadly drugs like fentanyl to pour into our communities,” Abbott said in the order.
“Meanwhile, landowners along the border are seeing their property damaged and vandalized on a daily basis while the Biden Administration does nothing to protect them. Texas continues to step up to confront the border crisis in the federal government’s absence, but more must be done,” it continued.
Abbott also moved to block federal facilities from sheltering child migrants in the state by ordering child-care regulators to pull the licenses for those centers.
According to Customs and Border Enforcement, there have been 1,078,226 encounters with illegal immigrants at the border in fiscal year 2021, compared to 405,036 last fiscal year. And few are showing up for their follow-up meetings with ICE officials.