Biden blasts ‘grandstanding’ as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott blames him for 51 migrant deaths

WASHINGTON – Texas Gov. Greg Abbott was quick to blame President Joe Biden after 51 migrants died in a tractor-trailer near San Antonio on Monday, even as immigrant advocates pointed fingers at his own hardline policies, asserting they force desperate migrants to put their lives in the hands of unscrupulous smugglers.

“These deaths are on Biden,” the governor said on Twitter. “They are a result of his deadly open border policies. They show the deadly consequences of his refusal to enforce the law.”

From Spain, Biden shot back.

“Exploiting vulnerable individuals for profit is shameful, as is political grandstanding around tragedy,” he said in a statement issued shortly after he landed in Madrid for a NATO summit.

Calling the deaths “horrifying and heartbreaking,” the president added that “this incident underscores the need to go after the multi-billion dollar criminal smuggling industry preying on migrants and leading to far too many innocent deaths.”

The White House touted an anti-smuggling campaign with Mexico and others, with 2,400 arrests in the last three months.

Abbott, running for a third term in November, has made a crackdown on illegal migration a centerpiece of his campaign. He has pumped billions into border security, deploying national guard and busing thousands of asylum-seekers to the nation’s capital, to signal they aren’t welcome in Texas and try to embarrass Biden.

At the League of United Latin American Citizens, national president Domingo García of Dallas asserted that Republicans’ hardline policies and resistance to guest worker programs and an updated immigration system have accelerated migrants’ reliance on smugglers.

“The politics of President Trump and Governor Abbott to build the wall, deport them all, and Operation Lone Star have all been abysmal failures,” Garcia said, demanding bipartisan reforms to avert future tragedies by normalizing the flow of job-seekers demanded by U.S. employers. “It’s also time for the politicians in Austin to stop using immigrants as political piñatas and start treating them as people in this humanitarian crisis, not a police enforcement issue.”

Thousands of migrants have died in recent decades attempting to cross the U.S. border from Mexico, some alone in the desert, others hidden, trapped and abandoned in overheated trucks.

This incident is among the deadliest.

Ten migrants died in 2017 after being trapped inside a truck parked at a Walmart in San Antonio. In 2003, the bodies of 19 migrants were found in a sweltering truck southeast of San Antonio.

A number of Texas Republicans in Congress joined Abbott in pointing the finger at the Biden administration.

“Horrific,” tweeted Sen. Ted Cruz. “How many more people have to die before Dems give a damn?”

Abbott’s challenger, former El Paso congressman Beto O’Rourke, called the deaths “devastating.” He condemned both the smuggling cartels and the failure to create an orderly system that would put them out of business.

“We need urgent action — dismantle human smuggling rings and replace them with expanded avenues for legal migration that reflect our values and meet our country’s needs,” O’Rourke said.

Julie Myers Wood, the director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, under Republican President George W. Bush, said the “horrendous scene in San Antonio” highlights the need to make border processing more efficient and humane, and to reform the asylum claims process.

“The delays at points of entry on the border are causing migrants to find other ways into the United States, including by using human smugglers, which all too often leads to the kind of travesty we now mourn,” said Wood, who works with other former high ranking homeland security officials at the Council on National Security and Immigration. “To remain secure and protect the most vulnerable, we must get our own processes in order at the U.S.-Mexico border.”

In addition to the fatalities, 16 people were hospitalized, including four children. Fire Chief Charles Hood said they were hot to the touch and dehydrated, and no water was found in the trailer. Police Chief William McManus said a city worker was alerted to the situation by a cry for help shortly before 6 p.m. Monday.

San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg said those who died had “families who were likely trying to find a better life.”

“This is nothing short of a horrific human tragedy,” he said.

Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, criticized Abbott for playing politics in the face of tragedy.

“46 people die and you go straight to right wing talk points. Worthless,” Castro tweeted before the death toll rose.

Castro said he had already discussed the situation with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who was leading the federal response.

“DHS ... is working to alert their families, find everyone responsible for this crime and investigate exactly what happened,” Castro said.

Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Fort Worth, said the deaths highlight the need for Congress to break years of partisan gridlock on immigration.

“There is a better, safer way to address this issue that doesn’t involve human smuggling,” he tweeted. “This is a crisis. We need to put our differences aside to advance comprehensive immigration solutions.”

In an interview with KTVT-TV (Channel 11), Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, drew parallels to last month’s Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde and the national outrage it sparked.

Public revulsion over the massacre provided enough pressure on lawmakers that Cornyn and a bipartisan group of senators were able to break through a decades-long stalemate on gun violence and get a bill into law.

“You would think that at minimum this would provoke a similar response and that the Biden administration would do something to secure the border and would stop this uncontrolled flow of drugs and migrants across the border,” Cornyn said.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre rejected accusations that Biden’s policies contributed to this “absolutely horrific and heartbreaking” incident.

“The fact of the matter is, the border is closed, which is in part why you see people trying to make this dangerous journey using smuggling networks,” she told reporters Tuesday aboard Air Force One as the president flew from a G7 summit in Germany to the NATO meeting in Spain. “Forty-six people died in the state of Texas.... Their families are still learning they lost loves ones... We’re focused on them, on the facts and on holding the human smugglers who endangered vulnerable individuals for profit accountable.”

Biden was getting regular updates, she said, adding that “far too many lives have been lost to this dangerous journey. We will continue to take action to disrupt human smuggling networks which have no regard for lives they exploit and endanger in order to make a profit.”