Texas is on track to build more of Donald Trump’s infamous border wall than the former president’s own administration put up in the state, Gov. Greg Abbott said Thursday.
“Texas is the first and only state in the history of the United States of America to build our own border wall,” Abbott said during a press conference in Shelby Park.
“If you look at the amount of wall already constructed and the amount of wall that is going to be under construction, Texas will have built more of the Trump border wall than even Trump built in the state of Texas,” the governor boasted.
The Lone Star State has additionally erected roughly 160 miles of barriers — including razor wire fencing, anti-climb barriers, Conex boxes and buoys in the river — that do not include the wall, according to Abbott.
Texas has also been ramping up its enforcement along the southern border amid the ongoing migrant crisis, which Abbott declared is “the biggest border crisis since America had borders.”
The Texas Department of Public Safety has made over 39,000 criminal arrests, apprehended more than 480,000 migrants in the country illegally, deterred more than 95,000 illegal entries, engaged in more than 4,300 bailouts and filed more than 19,000 charges for smuggling, according to the governor.
The Texas National Guard has also turned back more than 90,000 people who were trying to cross the border illegally, Abbott said.
The combination of those measures has proven successful at trimming the number of people crossing into the US through the state.
“The results are amazing,” Abbott told reporters.
While Texas covers about two-thirds of the US-Mexico border, less than one-third of border crossings happen in the state — a change that has happened only in the past half year or so, he said.
“Now, unlike before, migrants are choosing to go to states other than Texas and that’s because Texas has put up the resistance that it has,” Abbott said. “Early on in the Biden administration, most of the migrants were coming through Texas. That’s [no longer] true.”
One of the most telling signs of Texas’ success at stemming illegal entries into the country is the data on Shelby Park — once a hive of unlawful border crossings.
Since Texas has taken control of the Eagle Pass Park from the US Department of Homeland Security, the number of illegal crossings has drastically declined.
“If you look at this massive park area, this is an area where you would regularly see 2,000, 3,000, maybe 4,000 people crossing the border illegally,” Abbott said inside Shelby Park. “Since this park has been taken over by the [Texas] National Guard, the daily average is under 10 a day.
“It shows that deterrents can achieve results at decreasing illegal immigration,” he added. “The only reason why it’s not happening is because the president of the United States is not enforcing the laws that are already on the books.”
