Updated at 9:05 with new information.
AUSTIN — Gov. Greg Abbott declared Wednesday that Texas would build a wall along its southern border with Mexico and arrest migrants for trespassing, setting the stage for a confrontation with the Biden administration over immigration enforcement.
Complaining that ranchers’ fences are being cut, farmers’ crops are being trampled and border neighborhoods are becoming unsafe, Abbott said Texas must act.
“The Biden administration has abandoned its responsibility to apply federal law to secure the border and to enforce the immigration laws,” Abbott said Wednesday during a news conference at the state Capitol.
The exact location, length and total cost of the state’s proposed border wall — which would be constructed across government-owned land and private property donated by residents — were still unknown.
On Wednesday, officials gave the green light to a $250 million “down payment” of taxpayer funds and announced plans to hire a program manager to oversee planning and construction of the wall. The governor’s office also plans to crowdsource money for the project from the public.
The unprecedented project will almost certainly hit obstacles, chief among them lawsuits already threatened by advocacy groups over the arrest policy and potential resistance from landowners along the Rio Grande.
The federal government is responsible for enforcing immigration laws. Much of the land along the state’s 1,254-mile border with Mexico is privately held, and several landowners are already in court battling federal attempts to build a barrier through their property.
“No one wants to give up their home. No one wants to lose the property where their children grew up, where they were raised,” said Dani Marrero Hi, director of advocacy and communications for La Union del Pueblo Entero.
With the announcement, Abbott is further thrusting himself into the national debate over immigration. Many Republicans have joined him in saying President Joe Biden’s policies are responsible for fueling a “crisis” at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis took it a step further Wednesday, saying he would send law enforcement to Texas and Arizona to help handle border problems.
Crossings in May reached the highest level in 20 years, with over 180,000 people attempting to enter the country along the Southwest border from Texas to California. The majority of them — about 112,300 — were quickly expelled under a Trump-era policy linked to public health emergencies.
Biden has played down the increase as part of a seasonal pattern, accelerated by pent-up demand now that the economy is recovering. Since taking office, he has reversed some Trump border policies, easing some restrictions on asylum seekers and halting federal construction of a border wall, while directing the funds to other projects.
The White House declined to comment Wednesday.
Texas’ approach
The approach Abbott laid out is two-pronged: building a border wall and arresting migrants for trespassing or other state crimes.
The cost, design and length of the border structures will largely be shaped by a program manager, who is being hired by the Texas Facilities Commission.
To get the project started, top state budget writers on Wednesday approved redirecting $250 million from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, which manages the state’s prisons, to fund design and construction of the wall. Abbott said the state was committed to “adding more resources as needed going forward.”
The Legislature had already approved more than $1 billion for border security in the state’s next two-year budget, which takes effect Sept. 1.
Other funds are to be crowdsourced from the public and overseen by the governor’s office and the Texas Division of Emergency Management.
“Everyone will know every penny in, every penny out,” Abbott said on an episode of the conservative podcast Ruthless that aired Tuesday. “The sole purpose for those funds will be going to build the border wall.”
Organizers of a previous crowdfunded effort to build a stretch of border wall, including former Trump strategist Steve Bannon, were arrested last year on allegations that they diverted funds to themselves. Three miles of the privately built border fence in the Rio Grande Valley are already at risk of failing because of erosion, according to ProPublica and The Texas Tribune.
The project also seems to rely entirely on private land “voluntarily donated” by owners and public property. It remains to be seen how many Texas landowners will be willing to offer up their parcels.
On Wednesday, Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush authorized border wall construction on state lands managed by his agency, though exact locations were not released.
Abbott also signed a letter to Biden demanding that the federal government return land taken from Texans but not used to build a wall. The state will approach those property owners for its own wall project, Abbott said.
“My belief based upon conversations that I’ve already had is that the combination of state land as well as volunteer land will yield hundreds of miles to build a border wall in Texas,” Abbott said.
During Trump’s four years in office, about 450 miles of border barriers were constructed, mostly in Arizona on land the federal government already controlled, according to The Washington Post. About 52 miles were built in areas that previously had no wall, and costs for some of those segments ran as high as $46 million per mile, according to the Biden administration.
Border arrests
Meanwhile, Abbott said the state was erecting temporary barriers meant to slow migrants down and provide a way for state troopers to arrest and jail them for trespassing, despite warnings from advocates that such a policy is unlawful.
“There is going to be a lot more people put into jail, people who are crossing the border illegally and trespassing,” Abbott said.
The state is working with counties to add jail space and has already identified more than 1,000 available cells, he said. It remains to be seen who would bear the potentially explosive costs: the state or local governments.
While trespassing and other charges wouldn’t normally keep people locked away for long, Abbott declared a disaster in counties along the U.S.-Mexico border, so the penalties are enhanced, which he said means “they could spend a long time behind jail.”
Huyen Pham, a professor at Texas A&M University School of Law, said the plan is on “shaky legal ground, given the federal government’s exclusive authority to enforce immigration law.”
The U.S. Supreme Court in 2012 struck down Arizona’s attempt to arrest immigrants using a new state law.
“If the idea is to create our own border wall at the state level to try to create jurisdiction to arrest migrants, I don’t see how that’s not preempted by federal policy,” Pham said.
Advocacy groups warned that the arrests could lead to family separations and criminalize migrants seeking asylum in the United States. The League of United Latin American Citizens has said it is considering legal action to halt the policy.
“Targeting children and families as political piñatas with our money for expensive political publicity stunts is fiscally reckless and morally reprehensible,” the group’s national president, Domingo Garcia of Dallas, said in a written statement.
2022 politics
Abbott, a Republican who will be up for reelection in 2022, is increasingly hammering on border issues. The only Republican to challenge Abbott so far, former state Sen. Don Huffines, made finishing the border wall a top issue when he announced his candidacy last month. Last week, Huffines mocked Abbott’s announcement about the wall, saying, “I would like to thank ‘all talk, no action’ Greg Abbott for joining my campaign.”
Still, fellow Republicans lauded the effort. A wall of GOP lawmakers stood behind Abbott, nodding along as he laid out his plan in the Capitol on Wednesday. Lt. Gov. Dan. Patrick, who sat beside Abbott, called the documents authorizing work on the wall construction project the most “consequential” and “important” in Texas history.
“It’s reclaiming our land, our borders, our country,” Patrick said. “We are being invaded.”
House Speaker Dade Phelan, who sat on the other side of Abbott, also applauded the effort.
“This is a legal crisis, a security crisis, a humanitarian crisis,” said Phelan, R-Beaumont. “I speak for the vast majority of the Texas House, a bipartisan group, that feels like enough is enough. We’ve come to the point now where we have to think outside the box, and that’s what the governor has done with this initiative.”
Democrats criticized Abbott’s move.
“Greg Abbott wants to spend $250 million of taxpayer money for a border wall around Texas. Meanwhile, he hasn’t spent a dime to fix our power grid as millions are at risk of blackouts in 100° heat,” Julián Castro, then-President Barack Obama’s housing secretary and a former San Antonio mayor, said on Twitter. “Terrible mistake and a waste of taxpayer dollars.”
