Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday said Texas will protect the state and country from illegal migrants because President Joe Biden "refuses to enforce federal immigration laws."
Abbott took to social media to post a photo showing Texas National Guard soldiers securing a wire fence along the U.S.-Mexico border.
"Texas National Guard soldiers continue to reinforce border barriers in El Paso to deter and repel illegal crossings," Abbott posted Monday on X. "Texas will exercise our sovereign authority to protect our southern border and our nation because President Biden refuses to enforce federal immigration laws."
Abbott's post came four days after it was reported that hundreds of federal, state, and local Mexican law enforcement arrived on the border near El Paso, Texas, to prevent a migrant caravan, estimated at 2,000 people, from reaching the U.S., DailyMail.com reported.
Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton told Newsmax that Mexico's move was "to help Joe Biden pull the election out because that is his worst issue, according to polling."
Nearly 7.3 million migrants had illegally crossed the southwest border under Biden's watch through mid-February, a Fox News analysis found.
On Sunday, Abbott defended his position to bus migrants to "sanctuary cities" after being accused of toying with people's lives.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams offered for Abbott to stay in one of the migrant shelters, but not before warning the Texas governor not to "displace problems" onto "local municipalities."
"The person who is actually using illegal immigrants as political pawns is Joe Biden,” Abbott told Fox News. "Joe Biden has created an open border policy that has allowed illegal immigrants into our country to appeal to and to appease the far leftists in the Democrat Party, the people like [Rep. Alexandria] Ocasio-Cortez, and the hopes of trying to win their support while at the same time destroying the country that he is in charge of."
Late last month, a U.S. appeals court kept on hold a GOP-backed Texas law that would let state authorities arrest and prosecute people suspected of illegally crossing the southern border — a statute Biden's administration has argued intrudes on the authority of the federal government.
The three-judge panel from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans heard arguments in the case on Wednesday, The Texas Tribune reported.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.