Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday announced he had invoked the Invasion Clause of the U.S. and state constitutions to help deal with the southern border migrant situation.
Among the actions Abbott intends to take are the building of a border wall in multiple counties, and designating Mexico drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.
Abbott, who last week won reelection, took to social media to announce his move.
"I invoked the Invasion Clauses of the U.S. & Texas Constitutions to fully authorize Texas to take unprecedented measures to defend our state against an invasion,” Abbott tweeted late Tuesday morning.
"I'm using that constitutional authority, & other authorization & Executive Orders to keep our state & country safe:"
Abbott attached an image that stipulated specific actions:
- Deploy the National Guard to safeguard our border & to repel and turn back immigrants trying to cross the border illegally;
- Deploy the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) to arrest & return to the border immigrants who crossed illegally & deploy DPS to arrest illegal immigrants for criminal activity;
- Build a border wall in multiple counties on the border;
- Deploy gun boats to secure the border;
- Designate Mexico drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations;
- Enter into a compact with other states to secure the border;
- Enter into agreements with foreign powers to enhance border security; &
- Provide resources for border counties to increase their efforts to respond to the border invasion.
Abbott won a third term on Election Day by defeating Democrat Beto O’Rourke by more than 10 percentage points.
In July, Abbott called the massive flow of migrants across the U.S. border an "invasion," defending his executive order that allows Texas law enforcement officials to send them back to Mexico.
In April, Abbott's vow to send migrants from the southern border to Washington, D.C., became reality when the first bus arrived in the nation's capital. Texas, Arizona, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis then began transporting migrants to Democrat-run cities in protest of what they said is President Joe Biden's administration failing to police the border adequately.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection statistics showed that agents had nearly 2.4 million encounters at the U.S.- Mexico border in fiscal year 2022.
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