Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) pushed back on President Biden’s argument that the governor is using asylum-seekers as “political pawns,” instead claiming it is Biden himself who is doing this.
“So the person who’s actually using illegal immigrants as political pawns is Joe Biden,” Abbott said during an interview with “Fox News Sunday.” “Joe Biden has created this open border policy that has allowed illegal immigrants into our country to appeal to and to appease the far leftists in the Democrat Party, the people like [Rep. Alexandra] Ocasio-Cortez [D-N.Y.], in hopes of trying to win their support while at the same time destroying the country that he’s in charge of.”
Biden has repeatedly criticized Abbott and other Republican governors’ attempts to take their own actions at the border, arguing they have used migrants for their own political gains.
“Instead of working with us on solutions, Republicans are playing politics with human beings, using them as props,” Biden said in 2022.
Abbott reiterated his argument that Biden is pursuing “political games” and putting the country “at risk” because of his border policies. He likened the president to New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D), who has also been a staunch critic of the governor’s policies.
Abbott began sending buses of migrants to New York City and other so-called sanctuary cities for nearly two years, and Adams has repeatedly demanded more federal sources to deal with the influx.
“And Mayor Adams is just aiding and abetting that by having a sanctuary city status, welcoming in anybody from across the world to live there or stay there in New York City, on the bill of New York City,” Abbott said. “And what Mayor Adams needs to do, he needs to stop talking boldly about illegal immigration and the migrants that Texas is sending there, and he needs to step up and do his own job because look at the dangers in New York City under his watch.”
The Hill reached out to Abbott and Biden’s office for comment.
Tensions between Abbott and the Biden administration were enflamed earlier this year when the Texas National Guard and the Texas Department of Public Safety installed fences and razor wire in a riverside park in Eagle Pass, Texas, and blocked park access to Border Patrol officials. The Biden administration challenged this in what became a showdown at the Supreme Court.
Abbott and the Biden administration have also been in a months-long legal saga over a bill that would authorize local law enforcement in Texas to arrest those suspected of entering the country illegally. Late last month, a federal appeals court extended the block on the law, which went into effect for a brief time last month following a Supreme Court ruling.
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