Texas Governor Greg Abbott sent a letter on Monday to New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser, inviting the mayors to visit Texas’ southern border to see the humanitarian crisis firsthand. Border towns are being overrun by record-high numbers of illegal aliens as President Biden’s reckless open-border policies have invited mass migration and transnational criminal activity into Texas communities.
“As law enforcement agents along the Texas-Mexico border respond to thousands of illegal crossings each and every day, putting their lives on the line for Texans and for all Americans, the crisis demands the attention of not only the Biden Administration, which is responsible for securing the border, but of leaders across the country,” reads the letter. “As Governor, I invite you to visit our border region to see firsthand the dire situation that only grows more urgent with each passing day, and to meet with the local officials, who like yourselves, realize this matter deserves immediate federal action.”
In recent months, Texas has bused thousands of illegal aliens to Washington, D.C., who would have otherwise been released into small border communities with more limited resources than the nation’s capital. Last month, Governor Abbott responded to New York City Mayor Adams’ false accusations attacking the mission by calling on the mayor to direct his complaints to President Biden for refusing to secure the southern border.
The invitation to the border came after both Adams and Bowser criticized Abbott and Arizona Governor Doug Ducey for busing illegal aliens to Washington. At a July 21 news conference, Adams called Abbott and Ducey “cowards” for launching the program. “We do not become cowards and send people away who are looking for help,” said Mayor Adams.
“While Adams and Bowser are concerned about receiving around 100 people a day being transported north from the southern border, Texas is receiving several thousand a day,” Abbott said.
New York City has provided temporary shelter to approximately 3,000 migrants, Adams said at the news conference. He also noted that he had asked the federal government for Federal Emergency Management Agency assistance in the ongoing task.
As the mayors have voiced their complaints about strained resources, the Texas legislature allocated $4 billion to border security efforts and passed laws to make it easier to arrest and prosecute human and drug smugglers.
Texas law enforcement has arrested and jailed criminal trespassers and foreign nationals committing state crimes. Abbott has signed multiple bills into law penalizing human trafficking and those manufacturing and distributing fentanyl.
For the first time in U.S. history, Texas began building a border wall and is the only state to enter into agreements with the governors of four Mexican states to enhance border-security measures.
“As you know, our nation’s southern border has become both a humanitarian and security crisis,” Governor Abbott wrote. “This crisis was created by President Biden and is one that requires immediate and decisive action to be stopped. As Governor of a southern border state, I have watched illegal crossings hit record highs over and over again since President Biden took office. In the absence of federal action, I have deployed unprecedented resources to prevent, deter, and interdict illegal immigration and transnational criminal activity that threatens our citizens. Texas has spent over $3 billion in the past 18 months to curtail the devastation felt by our communities large and small.”
The mayors have not yet responded to Abbott’s invitation, but White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters last week that the busing scheme was “shameful.” “What Republicans are doing, the way that they’re meddling in the process and using migrants as a political pawn is just wrong,” she said.
Jean-Pierre added, “Abbott sending people to big cities was on purpose and he was using them as a political point.… There is a process in place, and we should follow the process. There’s a legal process in place, and they should follow it.”
Abbott rebutted, “Unfortunately, President Biden and his ‘Border Czar’ Vice President [Kamala] Harris have refused to see this crisis for themselves — remaining willfully ignorant of the crisis that they have created.”
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas recently claimed the southern border was “safe and secure,” which Abbott says is false; it’s “neither safe nor secure, as you can both attest to.”
It is unknown if the mayors will respond to the invitation or not. In the meantime, Texas and the border states will continue to deal with the illegal immigration crisis the best they can. “Texas will not sit idly by as this crisis grows. Texas is responding with the most robust and comprehensive border plan the nation has ever seen,” proclaimed Abbott.
