HARLINGEN, Texas (ValleyCentral) — Governor Greg Abbott and Senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn held press conferences Wednesday to discuss the ongoing border situation.
The Senators held a joint press conference in Washington, D.C., while Governor Abbott was joined by Governors of several states in Anzalduas Park in Mission.
While the locations for the two press conferences were separated by a great distance, the tones and content were mostly the same.
Both groups put the blame for the major increase in Customs and Border Protection (CBP) encounters with migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border on President Joe Biden and policies his administration has put in place.
“This is a humanitarian crisis, a public health crisis, it’s a national security crisis, and right now Joe Biden and Kamala Harris refuse to do a damn thing about it. Joe Biden won’t even go to the southern border,” said Cruz referring to the roughly 108% increase in CBP encounters from fiscal year 2020 to fiscal year 2021.
In August, CBP had over 200,000 encounters with migrants on the border, almost half as many as the entire amount for 2020. The fiscal year 2021 has had over 1.5 million encounters so far, and that will increase when the encounter numbers for September are released.
Senator Cornyn said the increase in migrants was not by chance.
The cartels have “learned that if you overwhelm the Border Patrol with unaccompanied children or just sheer numbers like we’ve seen at the border, that that will then open lanes into the United States across the border with which to smuggle illegal drugs,” he said.
Texas Department of Public Safety told ValleyCentral that they’ve seized almost 400 pounds of fentanyl this year. A lethal dose of the drug can be as small as 2 milligrams, which is lighter than a grain of rice.
“Just the amount of fentanyl apprehended just by the Texas Department of Safety just this year is more than enough to kill every man, woman, and child in the states of Texas, California, and New York,” said Governor Abbott in his press conference.
Assuming a 2-milligram dose of fentanyl is lethal, the 400 hundred pounds of fentanyl seized by DPS could kill over 90 million people and would have a street value of around $23 million.
National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd spoke at Governor Abbott’s press conference and called for a return to Trump era border policies in order to stop the influx of migrants at the border.
“If we can control illegal immigration, we can then go after the profits of the cartels. We can cut down on the drugs that are going to these states,” he said.
