Despite the Biden administration's insistence that the border is closed, encounters with illegal aliens at the southwest border have surpassed 1.2 million for the current fiscal year, according to Customs and Border Protection data. The crisis has led to a host of concomitant problems, including increases in human and drug trafficking, violence, sexual assault, and crime. Border communities bear the brunt of the problems, but they now extend nationwide as the Biden administration is transporting illegal immigrants across the country.
The strain on several Texas counties is so bad many have now declared the crisis an "invasion."
??BREAKING: Multiple TX counties will declare that the migrant crisis at the southwest border is an INVASION.
— House Homeland GOP (@HomelandGOP) July 5, 2022
The Biden administration and @DHSgov have NO PLAN to address this nightmare at the border, apart from releasing migrants into communities across the country. https://t.co/SyLxdLCSKr
"We're being invaded. The facts are there," Kinney County Judge Tully Shahan said during a press conference in Brackettville, Texas. "This is real. We want America to know this is real. America doesn't know what's happening here."
Shahan wasn't alone. Officials from Goliad, Terrell, and Uvalde Counties also hammered the administration for its lax immigration policies and the devastating impact it's having on their communities.
According to reports, former Virginia Attorney General and Trump official Ken Cuccinelli pushed the counties into making the argument that they are being invaded to use the "self-help provision of the Constitution."
“This gives the governor, decided similarly, the authority to repeal that invasion,” Cuccinelli said at the press conference today.
The former Trump Department of Homeland Security official claims that now that the Kinney County Attorney, a legal authority has declared an invasion, Gov. Greg Abbott can “repeal” immigrants. He envisions a Title 42-style program, where immigrants– even those seeking asylum– are automatically deported if they cross into the Texas border.
The Center for Renewing America has been reaching out to states and counties across the country, looking for any local government that would be willing to go along with it, the spokeswoman for the organization told The Post. (New York Post)
While legal experts say it's a major stretch to interpret "invasion" in this way, it just goes to show how desperate these communities are for border enforcement.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said he has studied the idea, but "there are some issues that we're looking at that we've been provided no answer on."
“These are people who already have papers to roam freely into the United States,” Abbott said. “As soon as we drop them off across the border, they would just come right back across the border. And so all we would be doing is creating a revolving door.”
Abbott also expressed concern that such a move could expose state law enforcement to federal prosecution. He said the former head of Border Patrol — he did not name which one — has sent a memorandum to his general counsel that acknowledges that risk. “And so no one has talked about that,” Abbott said. (Texas Tribune)
Abbott has, however, sent at least 45 buses of illegal immigrants to the nation's capital, hoping lawmakers understand the "consequences" of their policies.