Immigration policy is the responsibility of federal authorities and states should not “meddle” in it, the White House said after Greg Abbot, the governor of Texas, authorized security forces to send back to the border with Mexico. the migrants they detain.
Last Thursday Abbott signed an executive order that empowers the National Guard and the Department of Public Safety “to detain immigrants who illegally cross the ports of entry and return them to the border” to, according to him, “protect Americans and secure the southern border.
Abbott “has a history of causing chaos and confusion at the border,” White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre told a news conference.
In April, the governor decided to increase the inspection of trucks on the border with Mexico, which affected the flow of trade. He also sent buses with undocumented migrants to Washington.
Operation Lone Star, a border security initiative launched in 2021 by Abbott in response to increased border crossings, “put National Guardsmen and law enforcement in dangerous situations and caused a logistical nightmare,” said another spokesperson for the White House.
President Biden “is focused on real policy solutions to truly secure our border: installing new border technology, securing record levels of funding for the Department of Homeland Security, making more than 2,800 arrests in the first three months of launching a campaign against unprecedented smuggling,” he emphasized.
A week ago, the United States Supreme Court gave the Biden government the green light to end the Stay in Mexico program, launched by former President Donald Trump in 2019 and which allows asylum seekers to be sent back to wait. the resolution of their cases on the other side of the border.
Domingo Garcia, the president of the League of Latino American Citizens (LULAC), called on the United States attorney general and district attorneys in counties along the Mexican border to “investigate Governor Abbott and Lieutenant Governor (Dan ) Patrick for potential criminal and civil violations of federal and state law.”
The Mexican government attributes Abbott’s initiative “to a context of an electoral campaign in the state of Texas” in view of the mid-term legislative elections in November, which include those for governors.
The immigration crisis will be one of the main issues that Biden will address with Andrés Manuel López Obrador next Tuesday in Washington.
According to the Office of Customs and Border Protection (CBP), in May a new record was broken in the number of encounters with irregular migrants on the southern border of the United States with 239,416 people.
