Greg Abbott: "Texas will build it's own border wall"
Jun 11, 2021 @ 10:32am
Gov. Greg Abbott Photo: Office of the Governor of Texas
SAN ANTONIO (KTSA News) — At a border security summit in Del Rio, Governor Greg Abbott announced a decision to build a wall to help cut down on illegal immigration as well as human and drug trafficking.
He talked about his plan during a Friday morning call with KTSA's Ware and Rima.
" Texas is stepping up, we're going to do more than anybody has ever done before to better secure our border, to keep our communities safe and do what Biden should be doing."
The Governor says President Biden's open-border policies have led to a humanitarian crisis at our southern border as record levels of illegal immigrants, drugs, and contraband pour into Texas.
"It's stunning when you have people like Kamala Harris, who are out there laughing about this. It's just frustrating about the lack of response from the federal government right now. It's obviously completely different than it was under the Trump administration."
Abbott went on to say the wall wasn't a snap decision and that the state has the full right to do what it's going to announce next week.
"This is fully capable to be done without any valid legal action by the Biden administration. They may be frustrated about, they may try to do something about it ..but there's nothing they can do about it what so ever."
Abbott says if Texas puts up a barrier, anybody who vandalizes or does harm to it would be violating state law.
"What we had been doing is making arrest of people violating federal law then turning them over to federal officials and they don't prosecute them. I want to create state crimes that these people coming across the border are violating so we can arrest them and put them in STATE jail."
The Governor says in addition to the vandalism charge, people entering illegally could be charged with trespassing because it would be a "Governor declared disaster area."
"We want to send a message to people coming from 160 countries from around the world that Texas is the wrong place to come into. This is not the red carpet the Biden administration is rolling out. You're not going to get a free ride into the United States in you come in through Texas, you're going to go to jail."
Abbott says more details on his border plans will be announced next week.
Border Wall Greg Abbott ktsa texas Ware and Rima