U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland addresses staff on his first day at U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, DC, U.S. March 11, 2021. Kevin Dietsch/Pool via REUTERS
A day after warning Texas to remove the buoys on Monday afternoon, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Republican Governor Abbott to force Texas to remove floating barriers in the Rio Grande.
Officials in the Biden administration blasted Abbott for his “dangerous and unlawful” actions undermining Biden’s border effective plan.
“President Biden’s border enforcement plan has led to the lowest levels of unlawful border crossings in over two years,” White House Assistant Press Secretary Abdullah Hasan told PoliticusUSA.
“Governor Abbott’s dangerous and unlawful actions are undermining that effective plan, making it hard for the men and women of Border Patrol to do their jobs of securing the border, and putting migrants and border agents in danger.”
President Biden’s plan was criticized in advance (including by me) in anticipation of extra chaos as he dealt with Title 42 expiring, which was a pandemic rule that allowed U.S. authorities to turn away asylum-seekers. But, Biden’s plan is actually working.
“If Governor Abbott truly wanted to drive toward real solutions, he’d be asking his Republican colleagues in Congress why they voted against President Biden’s request to increase funding for the Department of Homeland Security and why they’re blocking the comprehensive immigration reform and border security measures that would finally fix our broken immigration system,” Hasan added.
This is a point we covered extensively on Substack: Republicans have dumped the border in President Biden’s lap, including refusing to fund the border patrol requests of the administration, which is really odd behavior from folks who think the problem is so big that it justifies killing children.
Abbott’s shockingly inhumane border policies were detailed in an email sent by a trooper to his superior, in which he wrote: “I believe we have stepped over a line into the inhumane” after being ordered to push small children and nursing babies back into the Rio Grande.
The officer “suggests that Texas has set ‘traps’ of razor wire-wrapped barrels in parts of the river with high water and low visibility” which has “increased the risk of drownings by forcing migrants into deeper stretches of the river.”
So it won’t come as a surprise that Abbott claimed the lifting of the Title 42 would “cause a catastrophic disaster in the United States.”
But that didn’t happen. An administration official pointed out that President Biden’s new border policy has led to the lowest levels of unlawful border crossings in over two years.
In fact, the Washington Post reported, “The preliminary result is a nearly 70 percent drop in illegal entries since early May, according to the latest U.S. Customs and Border Protection data. After two years of record crossings and crisis-level strains, the Biden administration appears to have better control over the southern border than at any point since early 2021.
It’s also worth mentioning that the Biden administration is meeting their objectives with the goal of humanity, including a facility stocked baby formula, diapers, and snacks.
The administration official also pointed out, “We’ve got more than 24,000 agents and officers working to secure the border day and night.”
They say they’re taking thousands of smugglers off the streets, catching record levels of fentanyl before it even reaches our border, installing state-of-the art border security technologies like automated surveillance towers and linear ground detection systems, surging additional asylum officers and immigration judges to review asylum cases all the while increasing support for border communities.
“Republican officials have no plan and are just playing political games,” an administration official said. “Now, instead of taking the border challenge seriously, they’re blocking the comprehensive immigration reform and border security measures President Biden proposed on his first day in office and opposing the funds needed for border security. Republican officials don’t want solutions; they want chaos.”
It’s very hard to see where the administration is wrong on this issue. Critics aren’t happy that Biden said he would veto a House Republican bill that restricted asylum and built more border wall. The President also vowed to veto a bill that cut the program allowing Ukrainian refugees and migrants a chance to stay in the U.S.
But none of those things actually secure the border while maintaining American ideals and values. What Biden is doing right now is actually achieving those goals, albeit imperfectly.
But no matter what, Biden’s plan is working and it’s immeasurably morally superior to pushing babies back into the Rio Grande.
Beto O’Rourke demanded that the Biden administration act, and they have rightly done so. “Stop him from deploying razor wire & medieval drowning devices designed to ensnare & mutilate. Stop every illegal thing he’s doing on the border that ends up killing human beings. Mr. President, we need you to act,” O’Rourke wrote.
There is no justification for the cruelty Abbott is wielding against migrants. President Biden’s plan is actually working. If Abbott really wanted to stop the flow if illegal migration, he would work to get the Biden administration more of what they need.
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