(PatrioticPost.com)- Texas Governor Greg Abbott pledged that his state would bus illegal immigrants to the nation’s capital in protest over the Biden administration’s lax attitude and enforcement policies in regard to the southern border.
And now, the state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, has said he’s fully in support of Abbott’s pledge — and would strongly encourage him to follow through on it should the White House not make a change.
Last week, the Texas governor said during a press conference that he would be busing illegal migrants to Washington, D.C., as one way that he’d try to take control of his state’s southern border with Mexico. It was just another instance of Abbott criticizing the Biden administration for not adequately enforcing federal laws regarding illegal immigration.
The latest example he cited is the White House’s decision to allow Title 42 to expire on May 23. That initiative, put into place under the Trump administration, allowed immigration and border agents to deport illegal immigrants immediately as a way to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
It was a move that was initially put in place by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention.
In announcing his disagreement with the Biden administration’s decision to end Title 42, Abbott said:
“To help local officials whose communities are being overwhelmed with hordes of illegal immigrants who are being dropped off by the Biden administration, Texas is providing charter buses to send these illegal immigrants who have been dropped off by the Biden administration to Washington, D.C.
“We are sending them to the United States capital where the Biden administration will be able to more immediately address the needs of the people that they are allowing to come across our border.”
The White House naturally pushed back against that idea. Last week, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, was asked to comment on Abbott’s pledge. She responded:
“I think it’s pretty clear that this is a publicity stunt. I know that the governor of Texas, or any state, does not have the legal authority to compel anyone to get on a bus.”
Paxton, though, made it very clear over the weekend that Abbott’s comments were not a publicity stunt — and that he would strongly encourage the governor to follow through on what he said at the press conference.
Fox News recently reported that Paxton made it clear that he felt the 2012 Supreme Court case of Arizona v. the United States was “wrongly decided.” That case prevents states from making immigration policies on their own, which Paxton said is a “problem” for the efforts Texas is trying to install.
In response — and with the Supreme Court now holding a firm 6-3 conservative majority — Paxton said he would urge Abbott not to back down. He told “Fox and Friends” recently:
“I’d encourage the governor to force people to be sent out of our state and make the federal government sue us [and] take that back to the U.S. Supreme Court.”
He clarified that he wasn’t daring the federal government to sue Texas. Instead, he said:
I’m daring them to follow federal law. But, if they’re not going to, why should the governor not be able to protect his state?”
