The governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, on Tuesday slammed the Biden administration and his policies for what he called a growing ‘crisis’ at the US-Mexico border caused by a surge in migrant arrivals.
The Governor spoke in In a news conference, where he stated that he was briefed by US Border Patrol officials as well as other Texas security teams and was given an aerial tour of the border, during which he witnessed people crossing the border ‘illegally‘. He blamed US President Joe Biden for changing policies at the US-Mexico border.
‘There is a crisis on the Texas border right now with the overwhelming number of people who are coming across the border,‘ Abbott said.
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‘This crisis is a result of President Biden’s open border policies, It invites illegal immigration and is creating a humanitarian crisis in Texas right now that will grow increasingly worse by the day.’
Biden, who took office less than two months ago, has been reversing many of his predecessor’s hardline policies on immigration.
Former US President Donald Trump largely shut down the US-Mexico border to asylum seekers and created a programme called Remain in Mexico which forced migrants to wait for their US court dates in Mexico.
The policies drew widespread criticism from human rights defenders who argued that they contravened US asylum laws. But Abbott said Biden’s elimination of Trump’s policies led to the increase in the number of arrivals.
Citing people familiar with current immigration data, The New York Times (NYT) reported that US authorities are expected to announce that nearly 100,000 migrants were apprehended on the border in February, up from 36,687 in the same month last year.
Migrant children along the border are arriving in increasingly growing numbers – with the number in the past two weeks tripling to more than 3,250, according to immigration documents obtained by the NYT.
AFRICA TODAY NEWS, NEW YORK