Texas Gov. Greg Abbott delivered a fiery address at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday, sharply criticizing President Joe Biden’s immigration policies while praising former President Donald Trump’s approach to border security.
Speaking to a crowd of enthusiastic delegates at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Abbott accused the Biden administration of failing in its duty to secure the nation’s borders.
“Biden deserted his duty on his first day in office,” Abbott declared, per The Texas Tribune. “He gutted President Trump’s policies, and the result has been catastrophic.”
Abbott also spoke about his own policy of transporting illegal aliens to “sanctuary cities” in northern states, such as New York and Illinois. Due to the vast numbers of people crossing the border, the initiative has incurred significant costs for Texas taxpayers since it began in 2022, totaling at least $148 million.
“When Joe Biden and Kamala Harris refused to even come to Texas to see the border crisis, I took the border to them,” Abbott said during his speech. “We have continued busing migrants to sanctuary cities all across the country. Those buses will continue to roll until we finally secure our border.”
The governor reaffirmed his unwavering support for Trump, promising that under Trump’s leadership, immigration laws would be enforced more rigorously, Mexican drug cartels would be more directly confronted, and illegal aliens would face higher rates of incarceration or deportation.
Abbott also referenced the tragic death of Jocelyn Nungaray, a 12-year-old girl who was raped and murdered in Houston last month. Two individuals from Venezuela, who were in the country illegally, were arrested in connection with the incident.
“She’s one of thousands whose lives have been destroyed by Joe Biden’s open border policies,” Abbott said, Click 2 Houston reported. “To make matters even worse, Biden is even fighting tooth and nail to stop Texas and other Republican states from securing our own borders.”
His speech followed a recent report from U.S. Customs and Border Protection stating that the number of illegal aliens encountered by federal authorities had fallen by 29% in June compared to the previous month. This decrease came shortly after President Biden’s executive order, effective on June 5, which restricted asylum grants to illegal aliens.
Abbott has taken decisive measures to combat the flow of illegal immigrants into Texas with his Operation Lone Star (OLS) initiative. Launched in March 2021, OLS has deployed thousands of additional National Guard troops to the southern border at a cost of $11 billion to date, according to The Texas Tribune.
As of April of this year, Abbott reported that state law enforcement officers detained 600 illegal aliens in a single week, bringing the total number of apprehensions to 509,500 since 2021. That same week, state officers conducted 200 criminal arrests, totaling 42,100 overall since 2021. These arrests have resulted in 37,400 criminal charges.
Additionally, law enforcement has confiscated more than 476 million lethal doses of fentanyl through Operation Lonestar, according to the governor’s office.
Many of Abbott’s measures at the border have been met with resistance from federal border officials.
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