EL PASO — Gov. Greg Abbott warned border sheriffs here Monday that they will face a “cataclysmic” number of migrants coming across the border beginning next month as he underscored his desire for a border wall and explained the use of buses to transport people to Washington, D.C., who enter Texas without documents.
Abbott, who has made securing the border his top campaign issue in his run for reelection, made his dire predictions at a meeting of the Texas Border Sheriffs Coalition in El Paso. On May 23, the Biden administration is expected to lift Title 42, the Trump-era public health rule that uses the coronavirus pandemic to justify quickly expelling most migrants.
Abbott said border counties would be “overwhelmed” by the arrival of as many as 18,000 migrants a day, based on the Biden administration’s projections.
“What we’re going to be seeing, based on the prognostications of the Biden administration, is going to be cataclysmic in what happens in border regions,” said Abbott, who added even if only half those numbers arrived, the estimated 3 million migrants would “double the number of residents of El Paso. It would be larger than Texas’ largest city, Houston, Texas, coming across the border in one year.”
Sheriffs, many wearing white cowboy hats and jeans, gave the governor a standing ovation. But in interviews afterward, several questioned some details of Abbott’s plan and whether it is the best use of taxpayer money.
Some pushed back on the governor’s bleak predictions and noted that the federal government and nongovernmental organizations already bus migrants out of border counties. Some sheriffs said they were careful about sharing their opinions because they don’t want to fray ties with the Republican governor and state purse strings.
Pecos County Sheriff Thomas TJ Perkins, who reiterated several times that he supports Abbott, said his county needs “more jail space” for people detained under Operation Lone Star, the series of policies implemented by Abbott to improve border security which has cost the state billions of dollars.
Abbott deployed 10,000 members of the Texas National Guard along with Texas Department of Public Safety officers to the border last year. Many migrants have been arrested on trespassing and other minor charges.
“We have a 42-bed facility but we’re so overcrowded we’re having to house outside our county,” Perkins said. “They’re supposed to pick up the tab for any Lone Star arrests.”
Perkins said his county has applied for an “overflow grant” from the governor’s office.
“They’re going to pick up the tab, hopefully that’s what’s going to happen,” he said.
El Paso sheriff Richard Wiles, elected as a Democrat, said, “My stance has always been that local law enforcement should not enforce immigration law. That’s a federal responsibility. I still stand by that policy.”
Wiles added: “We have in the past had to deal with the federal government dropping migrants off at the bus stations and other points downtown El Paso, and this community has been able to handle the load.”
Culberson County Sheriff Oscar Carrillo, whose county last year saw a historic spike in migrants crossing the rugged region, added that incarcerations have been a “big challenge. … We’ve incurred some expenses that have gone unreimbursed. And, of course, they’re recurring expenses. So, we’re still waiting for that check in the mail.”
As for buses, Carrillo, a Democrat, added: “I think they’ve already got NGOs [nongovernment organizations] doing what he expects to accomplish with the buses.”
Val Verde County Sheriff Joe Frank Martinez, a Democrat from Del Rio, said his community has no bus service, “so for us it will be good. But you know some of these people come across with money and they’re going to purchase a ticket and leave immediately. I think the people that are going to get on the bus, in my opinion, are the people who don’t have money… for them it’s a free ride.”
Martinez said his county can use more manpower and resources for the jail, not buses.
Along the U.S.-Mexico border, migrants continue to arrive from countries where economies are hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic, lured by the promise of plentiful jobs in a nation with a severe labor shortage. Most have been immediately expelled to Mexico under Title 42, only to make renewed attempts to cross into the U.S.
While some Republicans are campaigning on promises of securing the border in the Rio Grande Valley, El Paso remains a deeply-blue Democrat stronghold on the edge of far west Texas. Some county leaders, particularly County Judge Ricardo Samaniego, have publicly clashed with the governor on everything from Abbott’s response to COVID-19 to language used by politicians who refer to an “invasion” on the border.
Critics are concerned of similar wording allegedly used in a missive by the gunman in the 2019 attack at a Walmart in El Paso that left 23 people dead, most of them Mexican-Americans and Mexicans.
“We always need to be mindful of how we pick our words,” said Samaniego. The county judge and mayor were among the local leaders who welcomed the border sheriffs and Abbott.
Samaniego pushed back on Abbott’s ominous warning, saying, “Our collaboration with immigrant advocates, law enforcement agencies, whether local, state or federal, is exceptional as is our relationship with the city of Juarez (across the border in Mexico) because we have people in shelters and together we communicate and coordinate the number of people who come through.”
“The migrants don’t want to stay in border communities. They have families, jobs, waiting for them somewhere else,” Samaniego said.
As part of the security plan announced last week, Abbott ordered the Texas Department of Public Safety to do enhanced inspections of commercial trucks after they clear federal security checks in the hope that they might intercept migrants or drugs.
On Monday, Abbott did not mention truck inspections at the border and instead focused on providing buses for counties that need them upon request.
“What we have done as we speak today, we have buses available in every region,” he said, “We’re in any county, wherever you may be. Either there’s a bus there already or we can get you a bus in an hour.”
Angela Kocherga, KTEP public radio news director, contributed to this report.
