Trump Depicts Apocalyptic Situation
after Taking Abbott Up on Border Trip

Capitol Inside
June 16, 2021

Donald Trump revealed on Tuesday that he's taking Governor Greg Abbott up on invitation to team up in two weeks on a day trip to the Texas border to showcase a crisis that the former president portrayed like a scene from a dystopian horror film.

Trump explained what he and Abbott can expect to find when the two appear together on June 30 at a border location that he did not disclose in an email that confirmed the upcoming visit here.

"We went from detain-and-remove to catch-and-release," Trump said in the RSVP to the Texas governor. "We went from having border security that was the envy of the world to a lawless border that is now pitied around the world."

Trump shared details in the communique from the Save America PAC. The situation at the Texas border sounded dramatically worse than anyone who doesn't live on or near the Rio Grande might have imagined - with the singular exception of Abbott. .

"Biden and Harris have handed control of our border over to cartels, criminals, and coyotes," Trump declared. "Drug dealers, MS-13 gang members, human smugglers, sex traffickers, and the criminal elements of the world now have free reign. Hospitals and schools are getting crushed and public health is being sacrificed all in service of a radical left anti-borders agenda. Our brave border agents and courageous ICE officers have been illegally stopped from doing their jobs. Our Nation is now one giant sanctuary city where even dangerous criminals are being cut loose and set free inside the U.S interior on a daily basis."

Abbott has seen a surge this year in illegal border crossing through the same apocalyptic lens as Trump. The governor - ironically - had been silent when the influx of immigrants had spiked two years ago when Trump was still the president. But Abbott has made his outrage now clear in no uncertain terms amid a threat to have the Department of Public Safety try to trap migrants for their arrests on crimes such as trespassing and vandalism.

Trump's upcoming visit here will give Abbott an opportunity to shop his plan to round up private donations for the resurrection of the border wall in an apparent partership that private sources would fund and the state would control. Abbott shared his visions for the dead project's revival in remarks that were released on Tuesday by the conservative podcast Ruthless. The governor said he planned to announce a link to a crowdfunding site at some point next week.

“For everybody in the United States — really everybody in the entire world — who wants to help Texas build the border wall, there will be a place on there where they can contribute,” Abbott said.