CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Gov. Greg Abbott made the trip to Corpus Christi on Thursday for a roundtable with law enforcement across south Texas.
It takes no convincing for Abbott to want to have the southern border closed. With sheriffs and officers around him, he got to hear what they've had to go through with an influx of migrants coming across the border.
“Every sheriff in Texas is a border sheriff because of the open border policies allowed by the Biden administration,” Abbott said.
Since the president took office, Abbott has consistently demanded for a change in President Biden's border policies.
Sharing their experiences sheriffs of south Texas stand in solidarity with the governor's wishes.
“Just take for example a story from last week, when DPS (Texas Department of Public Safety) arrested a man from Honduras. And after they arrested him and processed him, they realized there was a warrant out for his arrest for murder,” Abbott said.
Abbott has combated this by bussing migrants to large U.S. cities. Thus far over 12,000 migrants have been put on busses, spending over $12 million to do so.
"Every migrant that we do bus, they sign an authorization saying they want to go to New York, or they want to go to D.C., or they want to go to Chicago,”he said.
Abbott chose those cities for two reasons. They are sanctuary cities and Washington D.C. was chosen in particular to send Biden a message and show him what the border situation looks like.
When asked how long he'll continue to bus migrants, Abbott said as long as his small cities need help. Sheriffs have been overwhelmed with migrants landing in those smaller communities.
“I will continue to be there to help those local communities as long as they need it, which I presume will be for the remainder of the Biden Administration,” he said.
The other issue with immigration Abbott addressed was the amount of fentanyl coming across with drug cartels.
“Most border patrols are filling out the paperwork of all the migrants the Biden Administration is allowing in. And because they’re preoccupied filling out paperwork, that leaves open wide gaps that cartels are open to bring fentanyl across the border,” said Abbott.
In September, Abbott made an order declaring drug cartels terroristic organizations.
Nueces County Sheriff J.C. Hooper said fentanyl is an increasing problem here. In the last three years, fentanyl-related deaths have increased. The most recent death in Nueces County Jail was related to fentanyl.
“Now we’re seeing fentanyl inside the county jails and it comes in as easy as sprinkling some liquified fentanyl on paper," said Hooper. "And it’s extremely difficult to detect. And so, now we’re sending money on technology to try to address that issue.”
The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has declared drug poising as the leading cause of death for people between 18 and 45 years old.
Abbott adds that DPS has seized enough fentanyl this year to kill every person in the United States.
He added that he plans to make Narcan regularly available. But he said this shouldn't be a Texas issue, the federal government needs to step in.
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