Texas Gov. Greg Abbott took the stage at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on Wednesday night, showing his support for the official party nominee, Donald Trump, while also bashing President Joe Biden's immigration policies.
The Republican lawmaker accused the president of "welcoming into our country rapists, murderers, even terrorists," particularly highlighting a Houston murder victim, Jocelyn Nungaray, whose body was found in a creek in late June.
"Raped and murdered by two illegal immigrants. She's one of thousands whose lives have been destroyed by Joe Biden's open border policies," Abbott said. "To make matters even worse, Biden is fighting tooth and nail to stop Texas and other Republican states from securing our own borders."
Two undocumented Venezuelan men are accused in Nungaray's murder. They were both working with a local construction company and had been drinking at a local bar for hours, prosecutors say, before meeting the 12-year-old at a convenience store just after midnight on June 17.
This isn't the first time Abbott adopts this rhetoric. In fact, migrants accused of committing a variety of crimes is a narrative becoming increasingly common among the GOP despite a growing body of literature showing immigrants commit less crimes than native born citizens.
During the RNC speech, Abbott also vowed to continue busing migrants to Chicago and other sanctuary cities such as New York City and Denver.
"When Joe Biden and Kamala Harris refused to even come to Texas to see the border crisis, I took the border to them," he said. "...We have continued busing migrants to sanctuary cities all across the country. Those buses will continue to roll until we finally secure our border."
Illinois state officials and Chicago officials have sought additional funding from the U.S. government to help deal with the influx of migrants, while New York has filed suit against Abbott's administration, seeking compensation from Texas for the program, NBC News reports.
Abbott dismissed the suit as "baseless," and talked openly about his defiance of the Biden administration when Texas was ordered to stop installing razor wire at the border.
"I deployed thousands of National Guard soldiers to build hundreds of miles of razor wire barriers," he said. "They built those barriers to stop illegal crossings. When Joe Biden ordered that razor wire, I ordered the National Guard to triple the razor wire.
At Milwaukee, the Governor showed support for the former president, vouching that if he's re-elected, Trump will enforce immigration laws, and "fight the Mexican drug cartels," as well as arrest the "criminal illegal immigrants."
Abbott's appearance was part of a series of speeches that heavily focused on immigration, and painted migrants as criminals who have "invaded" the U.S. from the southern border. He was also received by audience members holding signs that called for mass deportations of migrants.
The speech also came days after U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced that the number of migrants apprehended by federal authorities had dropped by 32% in June— among the first numbers released since Biden's executive order that widely stopped granting asylum to migrants went into effect June 5, the Texas Tribune reported.
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