When it became increasingly clear that the federal government was not going to stop the flow of illegal aliens across the border, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott began taking strategic action.
“You look at the results, and they speak for themselves,” Brent Smith says of what Abbott has done to slow the flood of illegal crossings.
Smith serves as the county attorney for Kinney County, Texas, which borders Mexico and is about 130 miles west of San Antonio. Because of the enormous influx of illegal aliens crossing the border, Smith says, “Everything has changed” in his community.
“People now, when you hear a helicopter flying in the air, kids know to run home,” Smith said. “And if you hear sirens, 99% of the time, it has to do with illegal immigration.”
Even schools have “military barriers around them” to prevent smugglers from driving through the campus, he added.
The county attorney also said his workload has multiplied many times over as frequent arrests of illegal aliens are made in the county.
According to Smith, “preventing the entry, repelling them at the river” is the way to address the crisis. That’s what Abbott has done in Eagle Pass, Texas, at Shelby Park.
Under Abbott’s leadership, the Texas National Guard is preventing the Border Patrol from processing illegal aliens in Shelby Park, which is on the Rio Grande and which served as a popular crossing point until Texas assumed control of it.
The Texas National Guard has laid concertina wire fencing along the riverbank and built a 4,500-foot border wall using shipping containers topped with sharp razor wire to repel illegal crossings.
Because crossings into Shelby Park have fallen to almost none, Smith says, Abbott will likely “expand the tactic that he’s using in Shelby Park to other places.”
Meanwhile, the Biden administration has been critical of Abbott’s recent tactics and has previously taken legal action against the governor’s efforts to secure the border.
Smith joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to explain the ongoing legal tensions between Texas and the federal government, and what could be next as the border crisis continues to unfold.
Listen to the podcast below:
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