Texas Would Have Had 15% Jump
in Illegal Migrant Entries in 2 Weeks
If Greg Abbott Claims Were True
Governor Greg Abbott sparked cheers at the Republican National Convention when he announced that the state had eliminated illegal immigration.
Then, on Saturday, Abbott declared on social media that his border security mission had sliced illegal crossings into Texas by an astounding 85 percent.
That means that the rate of illegal entries at the Rio Grande soared 15 percent in a span of less than two weeks if the Texas governor's spectacular claims were on the mark.
The good news is the Texas migrant count has not gone up as quickly as Kamala Harris' rise to co-favorite status in the presidential sweepstakes. The number of migrant apprehensions in Texas actually fell 46 percent from May to June according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.
The bad news is that the Lone Star State is still the epicenter of illegal immigration in the U.S. despite the governor's words to the contrary.
The Border Patrol apprehended 30,771 migrants in Texas illegally in June. Federal agents recorded fewer apprehensions in Arizona and California last month with 25,955 and 26,810 respectively.
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After falsely claiming to have eliminated illegal immigration in a speech at the Republican National Convention, Governor Greg Abbott
suggested during the weekend that Texas was close to doing so by slashing border crossings dramatically with the military mission that he's directed at the Rio Grande.
"Texas’ historic border security mission has DECREASED illegal crossings into Texas by 85%," Abbott wrote on Saturday in a post on the platform X.
The Texas governor offered no evidence to support the audacious claim on the reduction of migrant crossings to a level that's a mere 15 percent of what it was up to now. In the absence of context like a baseline for comparative sake, Abbott's grandiose claim is impossible to measure and devoid of credibility as a consequence.
An objective analysis of U.S. Customs and Border Protection data made public this past weekend shows that migrant apprehensions in Texas plunged 309 percent from a high point in December to the lowest mark in years in June.
If the Republican governor is correct about an 85 percent reduction as a product of his efforts, then President Joe Biden and his counterpart in Mexico City deserve credit for cutting it 224 percent with significant actions that Abbott and his GOP allies here have stubbornly refused to acknowledge. The math is simple - 309 minus 85 equals 224.
While the federal governments in the U.S. and Mexico may have done more than Texas to bring down soaring migrant rates, the state appears to have contributed to the decline to some degree with the placement of razor wire fencing and other physical barricades in selective small stretches of the Rio Grande. The busing of migrants to sanctuary cities has spread the problem around the country without having any effect whatsoever on apprehensions in Texas because the people getting free rides out of state were already here when they signed up for transportation program.
"Texas holds the line against the Biden-Harris border crisis," Abbott declared on Saturday after referring to the problem as the "Biden border crisis" repeatedly for years until now.
The addition of Kamala Harris to the blame game label is a function of the fact that she's now the presumptive presidential nominee for Democrats who went from life support to neck-and-neck in the span of several days after Biden dropped out of the race.
But the independent examination of CBP statistics shows that Abbott has been lying or has bad information with constant assertions that the American president has done nothing to curb illegal crossings since taking office more than three years ago.
The governor may be surprised to learn that migrant apprehensions in Arizona plummeted 236 percent from the tally in December to the count there in June. The number of migrants who the Border Patrol apprehended in California fell 36 percent during the same time frame. Abbott can't take any credit for the dramatic fall in migrant rates in California or Arizona. But Biden-Harris certainly can as evidence to discredit the Texas leader's unsubstantiated claims after choosing to ignore him up to now.
The migrant tally in Texas fell from 125,819 in December to 30,771 in June based on the federal agency data.
After apprehending 87,329 migrants in Arizona in December, the Border Patrol recorded 25,955 there last month.
The migrant count in Texas dropped 46 percent from May to June. But it fell 49 percent in Arizona in the same one-month span according to the federal records review. The number of migrants who federal agents apprehended in California was down 28 percent last month when compared to the count in May.
The Texas resistance in a mission with a price tag of $11 billion and rising simply prompted surges in the states to the west as cartels shifted routes to get people into the U.S. around Abbott's obstacles. So the governor's tactics may have reduced illegal immigration into Texas significantly. But that's come largely at the expense of the rest of the United States.
more to come ...
