Texas Gov. Greg Abbott hand-delivered a scathing message to President Biden Sunday because the commander-in-chief arrived in El Paso for his first visit to the US-Mexico border since taking office.
“Your visit to our southern border with Mexico today is $20 billion too little and two years too late,” Abbott said in a letter he handed to Biden as he stepped off Air Force One for a transient three-hour visit to El Paso, KWTX-TV reported.
“Furthermore, your visit avoids the sites where mass illegal immigration occurs and sidesteps the 1000’s of offended Texas property owners whose lives have been destroyed by your border policies,” the letter reads.
“Even town you visit has been sanitized of the migrant camps which had overrun downtown El Paso because your administration desires to shield you from the chaos that Texas has experienced on a every day basis,” it continues. “This chaos is the direct results of your failure to implement the immigrations laws that Congress enacted.”
Abbott concludes: “On behalf of all Americans, I implore you: Secure our border by enforcing Congress’s immigration laws.”
The damning document comes as 1000’s of immigrants have overwhelmed the Texas border city, with sidewalk encampments and tent cities popping up on the town.
US customs agents and native police rounded up a number of the migrants in the times leading as much as Biden’s visit to town — which critics have called little greater than a photograph op.
“All of this is occurring because you have got violated your constitutional obligation to defend the states against invasion through faithful execution of federal laws,” Abbott, a staunch critic of Biden’s immigration policy, wrote in his letter.
“Halfway through your presidency, though, I can finally welcome you to the border,” the governor wrote. “While you finish the photo-ops in a fastidiously stage-managed version of El Paso, you have got a job to do.”
He listed five tasks for the president, including that “aliens” entering the US must be detained by authorities fairly than paroled.
Abbott also asked Biden to “stop sandbagging the implementation of the ‘Remain-in-Mexico’ policy and Title 42 expulsions,” and implement applicable statutes.
He also urged the president to “aggressively prosecute” and take away migrants who cross into the US illegally, resume construction of the border wall in Texas, and designate the Mexican drug cartels as “foreign terrorist organizations.”
Abbott praised former President Donald Trump for “historically low levels of illegal immigration” during his tenure within the White House and said Biden’s policies have only served to “embolden the cartels” who cash in on human and drug trafficking.