AUSTIN — Texas will immediately begin building a barrier along the state’s border with Mexico while ramping up arrests of migrants, Gov. Greg Abbott announced Thursday, though the Republican offered few details about the initiative.
“Only Congress and the president can fix our broken border,” Abbott said during a summit in Del Rio focused on border security. “But in the meantime, Texas is going to do everything possible, including beginning to make arrests, to keep our community safe.”
Abbott said next week he will announce a plan for the state to begin building a wall along the border with Mexico, restarting construction that stopped when President Joe Biden took office. The governor offered no further details about the funding, timeline or location, but suggested the barrier could provide a way for officials to arrest migrants who try to get past it.
The ACLU of Texas, however, called the plan unlawful and warned it could separate families at the border.
The announcement comes amid increasing tensions between Republicans and the Biden administration over how to handle an influx of undocumented immigrants.
Recently, Abbott threatened to yank state licenses for some shelters in Texas housing migrant children, prompting the Biden administration to threaten a lawsuit over what it called a “direct attack” on federal refugee resettlement efforts, according to the Texas Tribune. The move could force shelter owners to relocate children because they must have state licenses to work with the federal government.
In a disaster declaration June 1, Abbott said that the Biden administration policies have opened the way for “dangerous gangs and cartels, human traffickers, and deadly drugs like fentanyl to pour into our communities.”
The Biden administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Abbott’s announcement.
As president, Biden reversed Trump border policies, halting construction of the wall and easing some restrictions on asylum seekers. He tapped Vice President Kamala Harris to work with Mexico and Central American countries to address root causes of migration, which Republicans insists makes her the “border czar,” though border security is not directly part of her assignment.
On a visit to Guatemala this week, Harris told migrants considering the trek “do not come.”
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Figures released by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol on Wednesday showed that 180,034 people tried to enter the U.S. in May along the Southwest border from Texas to California, a 1% increase over April. A majority of them -- about 112,302 -- were expelled.
CBP also said the number of unaccompanied children and single minors from Central American countries dropped 23% in May over April.
Under a new “enhanced border security plan,” Abbott said he will direct the Texas Department of Public Safety to work with local officials and arrest anyone “who enters our state illegally and is found trespassing, engaged in vandalism, criminal mischief or smuggling.”
Abbott is already coordinating with county officials to expand jail space, he said, and told the conservative website Breitbart the state identified 1,000 cells that can be used to hold arrested migrants.
The Legislature passed a state budget that ramps up spending on border security to more than $1 billion over the coming two years. It remains to be seen whether that funding will be tapped for this new initiative.
Abbott’s also looking for outside help. He said he will sign an interstate compact with Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, and called on other states to send law enforcement officers, drones, helicopters and jailers.
“It’s not the red carpet the federal administration rolled out to them,” Abbott said. “They’re going to jail in the state of Texas.”
Kate Huddleston, staff attorney at the ACLU of Texas, said Abbott’s plan undermines the “right to seek asylum by jailing those fleeing danger and punishing them for seeking refuge in the U.S.”
“In this plan, Abbott is yet again scapegoating immigrants in an effort to distract from his own failures in governing and managing actual crises in Texas — like the historic winter storm that led to the deaths of more than 150 Texans — with cruel results,” she said in a statement.
Abbott, who is running for re-election in 2022, is hammering on border issues, much like former president Donald Trump, who has endorsed the two-term Republican. Abbott is facing at least one primary challenge from the right, former state Sen. Don Huffines of Dallas, who has criticized Abbott over his border policies.
Huffines seized on Abbott’s announcement Thursday.
“I would like to thank ‘all talk, no action’ Greg Abbott for joining my campaign by admitting that as governor he’s had the power for the last seven years to close down the Texas border, and has refused to do so,” he said in statement posted on Twitter.
Washington Bureau Chief Todd J. Gillman contributed to this report.
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