Texas Gov. Greg Abbott Says State Will Build Its Own Border Barriers Amid Migrant Influx
Texas Governor Greg Abbott attends a press conference where he signed Senate Bills 2 and 3 at the Capitol on June 8, 2021 in Austin, Texas. Governor Abbott signed the bills into law to reform the Electric Reliability Council of Texas and weatherize and improve the reliability of the state's power grid. The bill signing comes months after a disastrous February winter storm that caused widespread power outages and left dozens of Texans dead. Montinique Monroe/Getty Images

Texas Governor Greg Abbott said the state of Texas would soon be starting the construction of border barriers in the areas where most migrants can easily cross the Rio Grande border with Mexico.

According to a Breitbart News report, Abbott noted that the barriers would enable state law enforcement to arrest migrants for violations of state law.

The Republican governor had pointed the blame on the Biden administration for the migration influx across the border, saying that it has shown that it will not step up and do its job.

Greg Abbott had picked Del Rio for the Border Summit due to the huge peak in illegal border crossings in the region, with the Del Rio Sector agents apprehending 27,890 migrants, a 1,118 percent increase over the May 2020 report of 2,289.

Border Security Initiatives of Texas

Greg Abbott said that Texas lawmakers had allotted a $1 billion budget to support border security efforts. He also announced the creation of a new governor's task force on the border and homeland security, which he said will meet every two weeks to create a solution to make the border safer.

The task force will include members of his office, the attorney general's office, as well as the Texas Department of Public Safety, according to a Border Report.

Texas Division of Emergency Management, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, and law enforcement and jail standards will also be joining the task force.

Abbott had made disaster declarations in 34 border counties due to the increased number of migrants trying to cross the border.

Migrant advocates responded to the move in the Rio Grande Valley by issuing their own counter-declaration. The advocates said that Abbott's move was an obvious attempt to distract from his failed leadership. They also asked for more support for those communities and not more law enforcement.

Meanwhile, a staff attorney at the ACLU of Texas, Kate Huddleston, called Abbott's plan "unlawful", adding that it threatens to harm families at the border and create trauma for young kids.

Huddleston said that the government is undermining the right to seek asylum by jailing those escaping danger and punishing them for seeking refuge in the U.S.

Border Crisis

In a statement, Greg Abbott earlier said that President Joe Biden's open-border policies had paved the way for dangerous gangs and cartels, as well as human traffickers.

The Texas governor noted that landowners along the border are seeing their property damaged and vandalized daily, adding that the Biden administration does nothing, New York Post reported.

Abbott also said that the president had abandoned the rule of law at the Texas border. He added that his disaster declaration had cost the state around $3.5 billion on border security since 2014.

The Texas governor also announced plans to legalize the criminalization of the manufacture or delivery of fentanyl.

In May, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported that it had apprehended 180,034 migrants, mostly single adults, BBC News reported. The number slightly rose from 178,854 in April and 172,000 in March.

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