On Tuesday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced that he will be invoking an “invasion” clause in the U.S. and Texas Constitutions as his state is overwhelmed with record numbers of illegal immigrants flooding across the border. The next day, he sent a letter to Joe Biden, criticizing the federal government for failing to secure the border and execute America’s immigration laws.

Abbott said that he will be using the clause to sign executive orders to deploy armed boats along the US-Mexico border, construct a border wall, activate the National Guard and Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) to turn back illegal immigrants, and work with foreign governments to secure Texas.

DPS gunboats deployed on the Rio Grande to patrol the southern border

On Wednesday, Abbott sent a scathing letter to the White House, tearing apart Biden for eliminating the Trump-era immigration policies and opening up the borders to a massive influx of illegal immigrants.

Abbott wrote, “The federal government’s failure has forced me to invoke Article I, § 10, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution, thereby enabling the State of Texas to protect its own territory against invasion by the Mexican drug cartels.”

“Your inaction has led to catastrophic consequences. Under your watch, America is suffering the highest volume of illegal immigration in the history of our country. This past year, more than 2 million immigrants tried to enter the country illegally, coming from more than 100 countries across the globe. Worse yet, your failed border policies recently prompted a United Nations agency to declare that the border between the United States and Mexico is the deadliest land crossing in the world.”

The letter continues, describing the harm being done to the border towns and southern states,

“Texans are paying the price for your failure. Ranches are being ripped apart, and homes are vulnerable to intrusion. Our border communities are regularly disrupted by human traffickers and bailouts. Deadly fentanyl is crossing the porous border to such a degree that it is now the leading cause of death for citizens between the ages of 18 and 45.”

Abbott also took personal aim at Biden in his letter, saying, “Before you took office, the United States enjoyed some of the lowest illegal-immigration figures it had seen in decades. Your Administration gutted the policies that yielded those low numbers. You must reinstate the policies that you eliminated, or craft and implement new policies, in order to fulfill your constitutional duty to enforce federal immigration laws and protect the States against invasion.”

He concluded,

“Your silence in the face of our repeated pleas is defeating. Your refusal to even visit the border for a firsthand look at the chaos you have caused is damning.”

Abbott’s initiative will see illegal migrants arrested and returned to the border by DPS personnel. Mexican drug cartels will also be designated as foreign terrorist organizations, and treated as such.

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