At a recent Harris County Republican Party event in Houston, Gov. Greg Abbott touted the success of Texas’ border security mission, Operation Lone Star, including busing illegal foreign nationals north to the residence of Vice President Kamala Harris.
“I got tired of Kamala Harris and Joe Biden not coming to the border and seeing the chaos they created. I sent them invitations, but they refused to show up. So, after a while, I decided if they’re not going to come see the border, I’m going to take the border to them. And thus began the busing program to Washington D.C., a sanctuary city,” he said.
Telling a cheering crowd, “Our lives have been turned upside down by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s open border policies. Four years ago, we had the lowest illegal border crossings in 45 years because Donald Trump put into place” strong border policies. They include ending “catch and release,” implementing the public health authority Title 42 and Remain in Mexico Policy and building hundreds of miles of border wall, he said.
In January 2021, the Biden-Harris administration “gutted all of those policies and put nothing in its place, putting no security on the border whatsoever.” He cited the record number of illegal border crossers, which now total nearly 14 million, including those who evaded capture and were deemed inadmissible but released into the country through two parole programs. He also cited more than 662,000 illegal border crossers reported by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement with criminal convictions or charges including murderers, rapists and kidnappers.
“And that’s not including those who are known terrorists welcomed into our country by Kamala Harris,” he said. “We cannot take four more years of their reckless border policies. We need to return Donald J. Trump to the White House.”
Abbott also described his efforts to enforce the law, including Texas being the only state to build its own border wall, “not just against another country, but now against another state, against the state of New Mexico. They [illegal border crossers] were going around El Paso into New Mexico, coming into Texas. And I said, ‘no, mas,’ they cannot come in. You’re not allowed,” The Center Square first reported.
Texas National Guardsmen are continuing to build hundreds of miles of concertina wire barriers “that make it impossible to pass” as well as additional anti-climb barriers. In one area in Eagle Pass, where 5,000 people illegally crossed a day, Abbott said no one crossed there in July or August.
Overall, OLS efforts from Brownsville to El Paso have reduced illegal crossings by 85%, he said, “because we have put up the resistance needed to keep people out.”
In response to Democratic-led sanctuary cities, he said, “They said they wanted them [illegal border crossers]; they would give them free food and free housing. I took them up on their offer. I not only bused them to Washington D.C., I bused them to the residence of the Vice President of the United States of America.”
As Texas bused them there, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, “who by the way is now under indictment, criticized me for busing them to New York City. We proved by the paperwork we had never sent anybody to New York City, but it did not stop him from complaining.
“So, after a while, I thought, if I’m getting the criticism, I will get the credit. And we started busing to the sanctuary city of New York City.
“The point is this, it changed politics in the United States of America. Suddenly every state was a border state. Every town, every county was a border town and county. This was no longer a Texas crisis. This was an American crisis, an American crisis that demands a president who will do his job, demands Donald J. Trump be returned to the White House.”
Earlier this year, when TIME Magazine recognized Abbott as one of the 100 most influential people in the world, it gave him the recognition in part because “he has masterfully needled Washington, through both unending legal challenges and agitating stunts, such as sending buses of migrants to Democratic cities,” The Center Square reported.
Since April 2022, Texas has bused nearly 120,000 illegal border crossers to six so-called sanctuary cities, with the most, nearly 46,000, to New York City, followed by nearly 37,000 to Chicago, 12,500 to Washington, D.C., over 19,200 to Denver, 3,400 to Philadelphia and 1,500 to Los Angeles, according to the latest data from the governor’s office.
Texas has also filed numerous lawsuits against the Biden-Harris administration, or been sued by the administration, for its border security efforts. Three key lawsuits are currently before the Fifth Circuit.
“Abbott remains one of his party’s most persuasive pitchmen, especially on immigration, where he’s constantly pushing at the boundaries of what states can do on enforcement,” referring to Abbott’s border security mission, Operation Lone Star, TIME Magazine said.
