The widely reported letter that Gov. Greg Abbott handed President Joe Biden during the latter's visit to Texas earlier this month told the president not to believe a sanitized version of what his immigration policies are doing to the southern border.
Abbott's single page letter referred to Biden's visit to the border on Jan. 8 as "$20 billion too little and two years too late" and avoiding "sites where mass illegal immigration occurs." Abbott also claimed Biden won't meet "the thousands of angry Texas property owners whose lives have been destroyed by your border policies" during his visit to El Paso, Texas.
"Even the city you visit has been sanitized of the migrant camps which had overrun downtown El Paso because your administration wants to shield you from the chaos that Texans experience on a daily basis," the letter continued. "This chaos is the direct result of your failure to enforce the immigration laws that Congress enacted."
Later in the letter, Abbott told Biden that the U.S. now suffers "the worst illegal immigration" in the nation's history.
"Your open-border policies have emboldened the cartels, who grow wealthy by trafficking deadly fentanyl and even human beings," the letter said. "Texans are paying an especially high price for your failure, sometimes with their very lives, as local leaders from your own party will tell you if given the chance."
Near the letter's end, Abbott also outlined what Biden should do to rectify the immigration situation after "you finish the photo-ops in a carefully stage-managed version of El Paso." Abbott recommended, among other things, that Biden designate Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations, resume border wall construction, aggressively prosecute illegal entry, implement and enforce Remain-in-Mexico policy and Title 42 expulsions and stop paroling illegal immigrants en masse."
The letter is dated the same day as Biden's tour of El Paso, the president's first visit to the border during his presidency, now entering its third year. Biden's visit was covered widely by many news outlets, including The Texas Tribune, which reported Abbott greeted Biden at the airport in El Paso, and then "parted ways."
The Texas Tribune also reported that the goal of Biden's visit was to discuss with local officials and community leaders border enforcement and the present state of immigration.
In a news release issued by his office the same day, Abbott also described his own "unprecedented action to secure the border" given "the federal government’s inaction." Abbott's steps listed in the news release include $4 billion to help make the Texas border more secure; Operation Lone Star to send thousands of Texas National Guard and Texas Department of Public Safety troops to the border; busing migrants to other states; designating Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations; signing 15 laws aimed at cracking down on human trafficking in Texas, including one law that increases penalties for fentanyl manufacturing and distribution and another that makes it easier to prosecute smugglers who traffic human beings into Texas; and allocating border wall resources.
