AUSTIN — Texas’ top law enforcer warns the Biden administration’s “failure to curb illegal immigration surges and secure criminal aliens already convicted of felonies is increasing the already hostile border crisis.”
Amid a humanitarian disaster unfolding at the Texas-Mexico border, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton released a statement Monday detailing the staggering catastrophe.
“More than 170,000 people attempted to cross the southwest border in March, marking the highest monthly total in 15 years,” wrote Paxton. “Over the past year, U.S. Border Patrol reported a 400% increase in encounters with illegal aliens at the southwest border. In the past month alone, encounters have increased by 72%.”
Paxton also said border patrol agents have faced 192 assaults since January, and 22,000 minor-aged aliens are housed in Texas.
Paxton’s report comes after President Joe Biden has been implementing policies in the past two months to allow more illegal aliens—including cartel members, sex traffickers, and criminals—into the country.
On his inauguration day, Biden signed an executive order halting nearly all deportations—a decision prompting a Paxton-led lawsuit and later deemed unlawful by a federal judge. Biden has since taken other actions to dismantle President Donald Trump’s border protections, including ending his Migrant Protection Protocols.
Biden’s decisions opened a flood of illegal immigration into the country. Just in February, Customs and Border Protection announced it encountered more than 100,000 migrants at the border. Department of Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas recently said border crossings were on track to be the highest in 20 years.
Human traffickers also said their “business is booming” right now because of Biden’s “benefits.” Reports from the southern border described countless unaccompanied children trafficked into the country, where many are then crammed into poor conditions at U.S. Customs and Border Protection facilities. Paxton called Biden’s actions “unlawful and perilous” and “far worse than ‘kids in cages.’”
Biden also unprecedentedly banned media from accessing the situation at the border, a decision that sparked a wildfire of public backlash and one he began backtracking only in the last couple of weeks.
“The reality is there is no way we can be prepared to deal with this magnitude of a problem with this number of children in need,” said Paxton, who recently visited a migrant center in San Antonio. “Staff at these facilities are stretched thin and straining to care for these children on an individual basis, which is what they desperately need. This is not good for the state, for our country, or for these children.”
“For the safety of Texas, our nation, and the thousands of kids housed at these facilities, I am using every legal resource available to sue the Biden administration and end its failed policies,” Paxton added. “This is not the best way to bring people into our country. Better, safer, and more methodical ways must be enacted.”
State Rep. Bryan Slaton (R–Royse City) recently proposed a law to have Texas finish construction of a southern border wall, which Biden halted within hours of taking the Oval Office. The proposal is currently tied up in the legislative process.
State lawmakers are convening in Austin until the end of May. Concerned citizens may contact their state representatives.
