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U.S. Division of Homeland Safety Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas criticized Gov. Greg Abbott’s immigration enforcement insurance policies at The Texas Tribune Pageant on Friday, saying his insurance policies are unprecedented and have generally brought about havoc.
“This is the first time in my 20 to 22 years of government service that I see a state act in direct contravention of national interests,” Mayorkas advised Laura Barrón-López, the White Home Correspondent for PBS Information Hour.
In March 2021, Abbott introduced Operation Lone Star. This state mission has deployed state troopers and state Nationwide Guard troopers to totally different components of the 1,200-mile-long Texas-Mexico border to arrest migrants suspected of crossing the border illegally.
As a part of the mission, the state has constructed greater than 30 miles of a wall close to the Rio Grande; troopers have laid out a number of miles of concertina wire on the riverbank that has resulted in a number of migrants being significantly injured; and contractors have laid out a 1,000-foot-long water barrier on the Rio Grande in Eagle Go. Texas has additionally sued a number of occasions to halt the Biden administration’s immigration insurance policies, which give a pathway for some Latin American migrants to enter the U.S. legally.
The Texas Legislature final yr authorised a regulation often called SB 4 that may permit police in Texas to arrest people who find themselves suspected of crossing the Rio Grande illegally from Mexico into Texas.
The state has additionally chartered buses of migrants from Texas border cities to what Abbott has described as sanctuary cities for undocumented immigrants, similar to Washington, D.C., New York Metropolis, Chicago, Philadelphia, Denver and Los Angeles.
Mayorkas stated Texas busing migrants to different cities with out coordinating with these metropolis officers is “incomprehensible to me from the point of view of responsible governance.”
“Is it purely to wreak havoc and disorder in the receiving communities to make a political point?”
In 2022, the state additionally performed secondary inspections of business vehicles on the Texas-Mexico border, leading to delays for Mexican truckers buying and selling with the U.S. The secondary inspections had been completed after immigration officers already inspected the vehicles. State police discovered zero medicine, weapons or another kind of contraband, in accordance with knowledge launched by the Division of Public Security to The Texas Tribune.
“It reeked of economic havoc,” Mayorkas stated.
The Biden administration has sued Texas to stop SB 4 from going into impact and let Border Patrol brokers reduce via the concertina wire to arrest migrants who’ve already crossed the river.
Immigrant rights advocates have demanded the Division of Justice examine whether or not Texas has violated the civil rights of people that have crossed the border, lots of whom are looking for political asylum.
Through the Biden administration, Border Patrol brokers have seen a historic variety of migrant arrests on the U.S.-Mexico border. However prior to now few months, apprehensions have been at their lowest ranges since 2020.
The governor’s workplace didn’t instantly reply to an after-business-hours e mail from The Texas Tribune looking for remark.
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