AUSTIN, Texas — Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday fleshed out his plan to erect a barrier along the state’s border with Mexico and begin arresting migrants, a proposal that’s already drawn threats of legal action.
Abbott and top GOP legislative leaders signed a letter the governor said allocates $250 million as a “down payment to begin the border wall.” Top budget writers Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, and Rep. Greg Bonnen, R-Friendswood, said they consider the $250 million to be spending lawmakers already approved. Speaker Dade Phelan said it would come out of the state prison system’s budget.
A project manager for the state’s barrier construction will be hired, Abbott said.
As he foreshadowed in an appearance on a conservative podcast on Tuesday, Abbott directed people to a website, www.borderwall.texas.gov, to make contributions. They also can mail in checks, he said.
“We are committed to adding more resources as needed going forward,” he said.
Abbott signed a letter to President Joe Biden that demands that the federal government return land taken from Texans to build a wall. The state will approach those property owners for its wall, Abbott said.
The barrier, he said, will slow migrants down and also provide a way for state troopers to arrest and jail them for trespassing, though immigration experts question the plan’s legality. Federal authorities are responsible for enforcing immigration laws.
Abbott said ranchers’ fences are being cut, farmers’ crops are being trampled and border area neighborhoods are becoming unsafe.
“The problems people are suffering just continue to get worse,” the Republican governor said.
“Make no mistake, the border crisis that we’re dealing with right now is a direct result of the open border policies that have been put in place by the Biden administration,” he said.
Last week, Abbott announced the initiative to address an influx of migrants last week, but until Wednesday, he had offered few details.
Together with his proclamation that a disaster exists at the border and his and state lawmakers’ recent approval of a 32% increase in state spending on law enforcement at the border, Abbott said Texans can expect immediate results.
“You will see there is going to be a lot more people put into jail,” he said, and county jails will free up cells to house those detained.
“One of my goals is for Texas to have its own barriers and for Texas to have its own laws enforced,” Abbott said Tuesday on the podcast Ruthless.
“We will be putting these people in jail for a long time because of the crimes they’ve committed,” he added.
Advocacy groups, however, warn the arrests could lead to family separations and criminalize migrants seeking asylum in the United States. The League of United Latin American Citizens is considering legal action to try and halt the policy.
“Threatening to arrest children and families for legally requesting asylum plays into the very hands of human traffickers, creating even more misery and criminal abuse at the border,” the group’s national president, Domingo Garcia of Dallas, said last week in a written statement.
The announcement comes as Republicans have accused the Biden administration of fueling a “crisis” at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Crossings in May reached their highest levels in 20 years with over 180,000 people attempting to enter the country along the Southwest border from Texas to California. The majority of them – about 112,300 – were quickly expelled under a Trump-era policy linked to public health emergencies.
Biden has downplayed the uptick as part of a seasonal pattern, accelerated by pent-up demand now that the economy is recovering. Since taking office, he’s reversed Trump border policies, easing some restrictions on asylum seekers and halting construction of the wall, while directing the funds to other projects.
Abbott, who is seeking a third term in 2022, is increasingly hammering on border issues. The only Republican to challenge Abbott so far, former state Sen. Don Huffines, made finishing the border wall a top issue when he announced his candidacy last month. Last week, Huffines mocked Abbott’s announcement about the wall, saying, “I would like to thank ‘all talk, no action’ Greg Abbott for joining my campaign.”
Abbott’s plan, however, has drawn praise from other statewide officials, including Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who said he backs it “100%.” Both he and Phelan, R-Beaumont, attended Abbott’s press conference Wednesday — as did dozens of GOP lawmakers.
It remains to be seen how much Abbott’s barrier will cost or where it will be located.
During Trump’s four years in office, about 450 miles of border barriers were constructed, mostly in Arizona on land the federal government already controlled, according to The Washington Post. Costs for some segments cost as much as $46 million per mile, according to the Biden administration.
In Texas, much of the land along the Mexican border is privately owned. Several property owners in South Texas are still fighting federal efforts to build through their land.
“No one wants to give up their home. No one wants to lose the property where their children grew up, where they were raised,” said Dani Marrero Hi, director of advocacy and communications for La Union del Pueblo Entero.
The Legislature approved more than $1 billion for border security operations in the state’s next two-year budget, which takes effect Sept. 1. The spending document doesn’t make specific mention of a border wall.
In the podcast, Abbott said his office will set up a fund to accept contributions from people who want to help fund the effort.
“Everyone will know every penny in, every penny out,” he said. “The sole purpose for those funds will be going to build the border wall.”
Organizers behind a previous crowd-funded effort to build a stretch of border wall, including former Trump strategist Steve Bannon, were arrested last year on allegations they diverted funds to themselves. Three miles of the privately built border fence in the Rio Grande Valley are already at risk of failing due to erosion, according to ProPublica and The Texas Tribune.
Abbott said in the podcast that “anybody coming across the border who in any way tries to damage that fence, they are guilty of two crimes: one is trespassing, the other is vandalism.”
Huyen Pham, a professor at Texas A&M University School of Law, said the plan is on “shaky legal ground, given the federal government’s exclusive authority to enforce immigration law.”
The U.S. Supreme Court in 2012 struck down Arizona’s attempt to arrest immigrants using a new state law.
“If the idea is to create our own border wall at the state level to try to create jurisdiction to arrest migrants, I don’t see how that’s not preempted by federal policy,” Pham said.
