Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) recently announced that construction crews had begun work on a border wall, funded by the state of Texas and private donations.
"Texas is taking what truly is unprecedented action by any state ever, for a state to build a wall on our border to secure and safeguard the sovereignty of the United States as well as our own state," the governor said.
He added that such action is needed because the Biden administration has failed to do its job as required by the Constitution and as required by Congress to enforce the immigration laws of the United States.
"[Abbott] is the governor of the state that has the largest number of people coming across," notes Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). "It affects the entire country, but most directly it affects communities in his state. If you go down to the border, most of the local officials are not from Governor Abbott's party; they're Democrats. They're from Joe Biden's party, and they're screaming about the impact."
But since the federal government will not protect the border, then Mehlman says states must step in and do whatever they can.
"This is coming at enormous expense to the state of Texas, but the failure to control the border is also an enormous expense to the state of Texas and a threat to the health and safety of the communities along the border," the FAIR spokesman adds.
Following Abbott's announcement, the Biden Department of Homeland Security announced it will close some unfinished gaps in the border wall but will not construct additional miles of wall.
