Texas Gov. Greg Abbott greeted Joe Biden at the tarmac upon his arrival in El Paso before handing him a letter that lambasted him for his failure to secure the U.S. southern border.
Abbott’s letter accused Biden of enabling the worst crisis of illegal immigration in U.S. history.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott greets Biden upon his arrival to El Paso
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) January 8, 2023
The news of Abbot’s hand-delivered letter comes as the United States is dealing with unprecedented levels of illegal crossings. The New York Post reported that record 2.4 million migrants were arrested for illegally crossing the border in the fiscal year 2022, which ended Sept. 30.
Meanwhile, an October 2022 report from the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) found that an estimated 5.5 million illegal aliens have been spotted at the U.S. border ever since Biden first assumed office.
White House Correspondent Jacqui Henrich posted an image of Abbott’s letter on Twitter:
Texas Governor Greg Abbott hand delivered this letter to POTUS in El Paso:
“Your visit …is $20 billion too little and two years too late.” pic.twitter.com/SQtYZ2SgEF
— Jacqui Heinrich (@JacquiHeinrich) January 8, 2023
The letter can be found in full below, courtesy of The Right Scoop:
Dear President Biden:
Your visit to our southern border with Mexico today is $20 billion too little and two years too late. Moreover, your visit avoids the sites where mass illegal immigration occurs and sidesteps the thousands of angry Texas property owners whose lives have been destroyed by your border policies. 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. This chaos is the direct result of your failure to enforce the immigration laws that Congress enacted.
Under President Trump, the federal government achieved historically low levels of illegal immigration. Under your watch, by contrast, America is suffering the worst illegal immigration in the history of our country. Your open-border policies have emboldened the cartels, who grow wealthy by trafficking deadly fentanyl and even human beings. 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.
All of this is happening because you have violated your constitutional obligation to defend the States against invasion through faithful execution of federal laws. Halfway through your presidency, though, I can finally welcome you to the border. When you finish the photo-ops in a carefully stage-managed version of El Paso, you have a job to do:
You must comply with the many statutes mandating that various categories of aliens “shall” be detained, and end the practice of unlawfully paroling aliens en masse.
You must stop sandbagging the implementation of the Remain-in-Mexico policy and Title 42 expulsion, and fully enforce those measures as the federal courts have ordered you to do.
You must aggressively prosecute illegal entry between ports of entry, and allow ICE to remove illegal immigrants in accordance with existing federal laws.
You must immediately resume construction of the border wall in the State of Texas, using the billions of dollars Congress has appropriated for that purpose.
You must designate the Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.
On behalf of all Americans, I implore you: Secure our border by enforcing Congress’s immigration laws.
Sincerely,
Greg Abbott
Governor
