Abbott vows expansion of Texas border security push alongside 13 Republican

[윤길순 (Texas)]

Abbott vows expansion of Texas border security push alongside 13 Republican governors in Eagle Pass

By Jasper Scherer, Benjamin Wermund,Austin BureauFeb 4, 2024

•  
•  

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and several of America's Governors attend a briefing about the border at the Texas Department of Public Safety in Eagle Pass, Texas on Sunday, Feb. 4, 2024.

Jay Janner/AP

EAGLE PASS — Gov. Greg Abbott and 13 fellow Republican governors gathered Sunday in a public park that's become the center of an unprecedented standoff between the state and federal governments and vowed to push his border security operation even further.

Abbott said the joint news conference at Shelby Park — a key stretch of the border the state seized last month, blocking Border Patrol from apprehending and processing migrants — was intended to send a message to President Joe Biden. 

“A state can defend itself and its citizens to protect their safety from the imminent danger that we are facing — and from an invasion from millions of people coming from across the globe into our country, who are unaccounted for whatsoever," Abbott said, again casting the record number of asylum-seekers crossing the border as an “invasion.”

ADVERTISEMENT

Article continues below this ad

The governor declared that, “as we speak right now, the Texas National Guard is undertaking operations to expand this.”

“We’re not going to contain ourselves just to this park,” Abbott said, flanked by GOP governors with rifle-toting state soldiers and military vehicles behind them. He did not provide more details on what that would entail. 

RELATED: Texas Republicans are ratcheting up talk of a border invasion. Critics worry it will incite violence.

Critics say Abbott's ongoing standoff with the federal government, and continued rhetoric about an “invasion," is creating a potentially dangerous situation in the small border community and beyond. 

[윤길순 (Texas)]

https://youtu.be/8LMrtTKXAAg?si=paXSteBvq8hdYYyp