Texas Governor Greg Abbott has begun ordering the arrest and jailing of illegal immigrants along the border while the Biden administration accelerates its “catch and release” program.
“Our fellow Texans and our fellow Americans are being threatened every day,” he said recently. “I’m talking to people in this region. Their lives and their properties and their families are being overrun.”
Abbott issued a state disaster declaration in response to the border situation, although some counties have refused the additional law enforcement help offered by the governor.
“We concluded we could not in good faith tell the people of our counties there is an emergency when there’s not an emergency,” said Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez.
Abbott has carefully prepared the ground for the change in policy.
Wall Street Journal:
The arrests have begun in Del Rio, a city of 36,000 that sits near the midpoint of Texas’s nearly 2,000-mile international border. A new processing center is in place near the county jail. State emergency-management officials set up military-issue tents at the county fairgrounds last weekend. State troopers filled hotels. National Guardsmen waited for Border Patrol with a group of migrants.
Mr. Abbott said Saturday, during an event in Del Rio, that the state has largely achieved the steps to make it possible to arrest border crossers. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice emptied a 1,000-person prison south of San Antonio for the operation and has been making changes to operate it as a jail.
Meanwhile, in McAllen, Texas — a hub of illegal crossings — overwhelmed border agents have begun releasing illegals captured at the border in droves. The four bus companies that service McAllen are overwhelmed as illegals must wait two days before seats become available.
“We don’t have enough private bus seats to get everyone out,” City Manager Roy Rodriguez said.
New York Post:
The demand for tickets out of town is at a “record” high, with “most, if not all” of the recent increase coming from migrants who were caught crossing the border illegally and released pending future court appearances, Rodriguez said, citing information pulled together by McAllen Transit Director Mario Delgado.
All seats are already purchased for tomorrow,” Rodriguez said Wednesday.
“So, if somebody wants to buy a bus fare to head north, they have to wait two days.”
Central Station has also seen a 50 percent surge in the number of passengers hanging around and waiting to leave, he said, adding, “That’s substantial because we’re a pretty busy bus station to begin with.”
It should be noted that the pandemic restrictions on the border put in place by Donald Trump technically have yet to be lifted. Those rules severely restrict the number of refugees that are allowed into the country.
But for all intents and purposes, those restrictions are already history.
Biden has managed to suppress the political fallout from the surge with a lot of help from his friends in the national media who have found things to talk about other than the record number of border jumpers being caught and released.
Until the media rediscovers the crisis, Biden will get a pass for his malfeasance.
Source: PJ Media
