The governors of 11 Republican-led states met in the Texas border town of Mission Wednesday to demand President Joe Biden take immediate steps to halt migrant flows.
“President Joe Biden has caused a humanitarian crisis and chaos on our border,” Abbott said, with 10 other U.S. governors standing behind him.
The GOP governors complained of an increase in illegal immigration and drug trafficking since Biden took office. “Joe Biden has done absolutely nothing,” Abbott said, adding that he and the other Republican governors asked for a meeting with the president to discuss their concerns, but “he completely ignored us.”
The governors pitched a 10-point plan to take control of the border and stem immigration. It includes the reinstatement of the “Remain in Mexico” policy that requires immigrants to return to their home countries until amnesty hearings are concluded in the U.S., and completing the border wall that was a priority of former President Donald Trump.
They also call for reinstatement of Title 42 health restrictions at the border, which require immigrants to be deported if they pose a health risk, including testing positive for COVID-19. Other measures that they’re calling on Biden to undertake:
- Ending policies that allows humanitarian parole of some migrants.
- Clearing the judicial backlog of 1.4 million pending immigration cases
- Resuming the deportation undocumented persons who are convicted of a crime.
- Re-entering into agreements with the Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, and Mexico.
- Deploying more federal law enforcement officers.
Abbott was joined by Govs. Goug Ducey of Arizona, Brian Kemp of Georgia, Brad Little of Idaho, Kim Reynolds of Iowa, Greg Gianforte of Montana, Pete Ricketts of Nebraska, Mike DeWine of Ohio, Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma, Kristi Noem of South Dakota and Mark Gordon of Wyoming.
“The situation here is certainly outrageous,” Ducey said, citing the recent well-publicized case of more than 15,000 mostly Haitian refugees who congregated under a bridge in Del Rio, Texas. “It’s a tragedy and I can tell you the border situation is just as out of control in the state of Arizona.”
Many of the governors also pointed to drug trafficking as a concern, saying they’ve seen large increases in the distribution of the highly addictive narcotic fentanyl.
Overall, more than 1.3 million migrants have been apprehended at the U.S. border with Mexico this year, a number greater than the populations of nine states. Another several hundred thousand have evaded capture in addition to those who surrendered to Border Patrol.
New guidelines issued by Department of Homeland Security state that entering the U.S. illegally is no longer an arrestable offense.
“The fact an individual is a removable noncitizen therefore should not alone be the basis of an enforcement action against them,” DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a memorandum to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials last week. “We will use our discretion and focus our enforcement resources in a more targeted way. Justice and our country’s well-being require it.”
Only those who pose a threat to national security, public safety or a threat to border security should be targeted for removal, the new guidelines state. The governors at Wednesday’s news conference called for Mayorkas’ resignation or firing.
