Texas Troops Rush to Add More Razor Wire to Secure Border Amid ‘Federal Government’s Absence’: Abbott

U.S. military prevent people from crossing illegally into El Paso, Texas, as seen from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on Dec. 20, 2022. AP Photo/Christian Chavez

With the illegal immigration crisis continuing into the new year, the Texas National Guard has ramped up its efforts to secure the border by installing additional layers of razor wire in high-traffic areas.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said on Jan. 2 that the state’s National Guard troops are “working around the clock” to plug gaps in the U.S.–Mexico border and reduce the number of crossing points used by people to enter the United States illegally.

Abbott’s update on the border security moves—and his remark about the federal government’s “absence”—come in context of the governor’s long-running efforts to secure the southern border under “Operation Lone Star,” which he launched in March to stem the tide of illegal crossings.

Illegal immigration has soared under President Joe Biden’s watch, with unauthorized crossings topping 2.76 million in fiscal year 2022, which ended Sept. 30, according to Customs and Border Protection data.

The alarming number broke the previous record of illegal crossings by more than 1 million and was more than twice the highest level notched during the tenure of former President Donald Trump, who made stemming the influx a major part of his policy platform.

Fiscal year 2023 is on track to break last year’s record of illegal crossings, with both October and November setting records in their respective months for the number of illegal alien encounters.

People walk across the Rio Grande to surrender to U.S. Border Patrol agents in El Paso, Texas, as seen from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on Dec. 13, 2022. Herika Martinez/AFP/Getty Images

‘Federal Inaction’

Shortly before Christmas, as cold temperatures gripped Texas, Abbott asked Biden to deploy federal assets immediately “to address the dire border crisis, particularly in the City of El Paso, as a dangerously cold polar vortex moves into Texas this week.”

In his letter to Biden, the Texas governor blamed “federal inaction” for putting the lives of migrants at risk, warning that the numbers of people crossing the border illegally would rise if Title 42 expulsions end.

Title 42 is a Trump-era policy that was used around 2.5 million times to block asylum claims and was widely credited with helping stem the flow of illegal immigration into the United States. A federal judge ordered Title 42 to end on Dec. 21, but a series of appeals brought the case before the U.S. Supreme Court, which has extended the program.

“This terrible crisis for border communities in Texas is a catastrophe of your own making,” Abbott told Biden in the letter, adding that the Lone Star state is “overburdened as we respond to this disaster caused by you and your administration.”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment from The Epoch Times.

President Joe Biden arrives to deliver the State of the Union address as Vice President Kamala Harris (L) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) look on during a joint session of Congress in the U.S. Capitol House Chamber in Washington, on Mar. 1, 2022. Saul Loeb/Pool/Getty Images

‘Border Is Open’

Republicans have long accused the Democrats of advocating for an open-borders policy, though the Biden administration has repeatedly denied this claim.

Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas has acknowledged that the situation along the southern border is “difficult,” while insisting that the Biden administration wants a “safe, legal, and orderly immigration system that is based on our bedrock priorities: to keep our borders secure, address the plight of children as the law requires, and enable families to be together.”

Mayorkas said recently that Republican rhetoric claiming that the “border is open” was helping fuel the influx.

“The political cry that the border is open is music to the smugglers’ ears, because they take that political rhetoric and they market it” to desperate migrants, Mayorkas told The Dallas Morning News.

Still, when Biden took office, one of his first actions was to cancel the Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” policy.

That rule meant that asylum-seekers were required to remain in Mexico while their claims for asylum were processed, with figures showing that the policy discouraged false asylum claims and decreased the flow of illegal immigration.

Abbott, in the face of what he’s described as federal inaction on border security, has taken matters into his own hands. He recently ordered hundreds of Texas National Guard soldiers to serve as part of a “contingency border force.”

The soldiers set up along the river channel separating El Paso from Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, with the aim of preventing people from crossing the border illegally.

“This morning, service members deployed to El Paso, Texas, constructed a triple-strand concertina barrier near the border to secure the area from illegal crossings,” the Texas Military Department, which oversees the state’s National Guard, said in a statement on Dec. 20.

U.S. military stop people from crossing into El Paso, Texas, seen from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on Dec. 20, 2022. AP Photo/Christian Chavez

Members of the Texas National Guard spent Christmas Day adding to the razor-wire border fencing near El Paso.

Maj. Gen. Ronald “Win” Burkett described in a video how more than 400 soldiers had been airlifted and more than 40 vehicles had been placed in El Paso over just 72 hours as part of the effort to secure the border.

Burkett praised the work of the soldiers, noting that “they’re focused on deterrence, they’re focused on sending a message that unlawful crossing is not an option.”

Shortly after the razor-wire fence went up near the Rio Grande on Dec. 20, a group of around 75 people seeking to enter the United States through an unauthorized crossing faced off against National Guard members and state troopers, according to The Texas Tribune.

A National Guard service member told the people through a bullhorn that they would be unable to enter through the unauthorized crossing and sought to funnel them to a lawful port of entry.

People gather near a crossing into El Paso, Texas, as seen from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on Dec. 20, 2022. Christian Chavez/AP Photo

Following Abbott’s decision to deploy more than 400 Texas National Guard personnel to El Paso as part of the “contingency border force,” the governor also moved to bolster border security by adding shipping containers along the Rio Grande as part of a makeshift wall.

“Texas is adding shipping containers to the U.S.–Mexico border in El Paso,” Abbott wrote in a post on Twitter. “This is in addition to the razor wire and National Guard. Together, the strategies are causing illegal immigration at that location to plummet.”

While the makeshift border wall is going up in Texas, it’s coming down in Arizona, where outgoing Republican Gov. Doug Ducey agreed to dismantle a shipping container barrier in response to a lawsuit from the Biden administration.

Issues of border security surged to the forefront recently amid the legal back-and-forth on the fate of Title 42.

Title 42 Back-and-Forth

Texas was among the 19 Republican-led states that asked the U.S. Supreme Court to extend Title 42 restrictions beyond its scheduled Dec. 21st end date. The states argued that ending the policy could lead to a spike in unlawful border crossings.

The Biden administration sought to lift Title 42 after U.S. health authorities said in April that the order was no longer needed to prevent the spread of COVID-19. That move was blocked by a Trump-appointed federal judge in Louisiana, in response to the Republican-led legal challenge.

Amid further legal back-and-forth, the Supreme Court ruled on Dec. 27 to keep Title 42 in place, with the justices announcing they will hear arguments about the program in 2023.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reacted to the Title 42 extension with the following statement: “As required by today’s Supreme Court order, the Title 42 public health order will remain in effect, and individuals who attempt to enter the United States unlawfully will continue to be expelled to Mexico or their home country.”

“People should not listen to the lies of smugglers who take advantage of vulnerable migrants, putting lives at risk. The border is not open, and we will continue to fully enforce our immigration laws,” the DHS added.

Crisis in El Paso

Before Abbott ordered troops to be deployed to El Paso on Dec. 20, hundreds of people had crossed the border and waited in line to be processed by Border Patrol agents, with many later released into the city.

El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser, a Democrat, warned that shelters across the border in Ciudad Juárez were filled to capacity and then declared a state of emergency amid a surge in unauthorized crossings that left people sleeping in the streets.

Leeser said the emergency measures would allow the city to access more resources to shelter people, adding that the measures would be even more necessary after Title 42 ends, when he predicted that the rise in the number of illegal border crossings would be “incredible.”

Over the past week, border agents have encountered an average of 1,652 illegal aliens a day in a 268-mile stretch of the border known as the El Paso Sector, according to figures published by the city.

At the same time, there was an average of 3,761 people daily in Border Patrol custody over the past seven days.