KEY POINTS
- Texas Gov. Greg Abbott was joined by 13 GOP governors at Shelby Park in Eagle Pass on Sunday
- 25 governors are banding together to ensure that Texas can safeguard its borders, Abbott said
- The governors of Arkansas, Tennessee and Georgia also joined Abbott in calling Biden out
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott declared that it was Texas' right to safeguard its borders amidst an intensifying dispute with the Biden administration over migrant crossings.
As immigration becomes a potent issue this election season, more than a dozen Republican governors gathered at Shelby Park in Eagle Pass on Sunday for a press conference. The 13 GOP governors surrounded Abbott as he vowed to go against the Biden administration and maintain state control of the southern border.
Abbott said President Joe Biden had "completely abdicated and abandoned his responsibility to enforce the laws of the United States."
"We are here to send a loud and clear message that we are banding together to fight to ensure that we will be able to maintain our constitutional guarantee that states will be able to defend against any type of imminent danger," Abbott said as he spoke alongside the governors of Georgia, Tennessee, Montana, Arkansas, and others.
"President Biden has abandoned his constitutional duty to protect Americans by refusing to secure our southern border," Abbott was quoted saying in a press release. "During his presidency, Joe Biden has smashed records for illegal immigration and allowed chaos to be unleashed along our southern border. Instead of upholding immigration laws already on the books, President Biden sent his lawyers into federal courts to sue the State of Texas for doing the job he should have been doing all along."
Texas would continue to protect the border with the support of 25 of America's Governors until the Biden administration "decides to do its job," Abbott said.
The Texas governor and the Biden administration have been locked in a power struggle over Eagle Pass, a major corridor for illegal border crossings in recent years.
While the Biden administration maintains that border control falls strictly under federal jurisdiction, Abbott has defied the administration with aggressive tactics that included blocking federal U.S. Border Patrol agents from entering and patrolling Shelby Park.
The state has also deployed troops, concertina wire, and a floating buoy barrier in the Rio Grande to reduce the number of illegal immigrants.
The installation of more than 100 miles of razor wire barrier has resulted in the decline of illegal border crossings, Abbott said at the Sunday press conference.
Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp also joined Abbott in calling Biden out.
"Because of his failures, Governor Abbott is having to step up, governors from across the country are having to step up and do the job of the federal government because they simply won't," said Sanders.
