Migrant Count Decline Could Be Ammo
for Abbott Bid to Back Up Border Claims

Capitol Inside
August 17, 2022

A 19 percent drop in migrant apprehensions during the past two months has given Governor Greg Abbott an opportunity to tout historic agreements that he signed with four Mexican governors in April in a move that he says made it possible for Texas to be securing the border despite claims from the far right that an invasion is under way.

But there's a catch - or two.

Abbott has dropped the pacts with the Mexican counterparts from the dialogue on border security throughout the summer after crediting them in June with the defusing of a massive caravan that was moving toward Texas. After promoting the deals with the Mexicans with substantial fanfare for two months, Abbott segued into a new message that revolved on a vow that Texas was successfully the border with Operation Lone Star in the absence of a more aggressive federal policy.

The Republican governor could seize on new U.S. Customs and Border Protection data that shows that federal agents encountered 117,872 migrants in the month of July in six Texas regions from the Rio Grande Valley to El Paso. The federal agency apprehended 139,949 migrants in Texas in May before the number fell to 128,423 in June. The downward trend is not what Abbott expected with warnings of massive spikes in the flow of people into Texas from Mexico when he issued warnings in the spring about massive spikes on the horizon with the repeal of a Donald Trump administration policy that limited the number of asylum seekers here.

But the unexpected fall in migrant apprehensions this summer would be good news at first glance for the governor as a small measure of tangible evidence that Operation Lone Star may be having some effect on the tidal wave he'd envisioned before securing promises from the Mexican border governors to enforce immigration laws south of the Rio Grande.

The problem with taking credit for the decline in migrant apprehensions in Texas is the fact that they took much steeper drops in Border Patrol's districts in Arizona that are anchored in the cities of Yuma and Tuscon. Federal apprehensions of migrants in Arizona plunged by 47 percent in July compared to the count there in May.

But Texas saw a steeper fall in migrant apprehensions in two months than the reduction that the USBP recorded in the same span of time in the California districts that are based in San Diego and El Centro. The migrant apprehension count dipped 6 percent in California in the same period.

Arizona Governor Doug Ducey followed Abbott's lead in May when he ordered the state to send buses with migrants to Washington D.C. Abbott started sending migrants in buses to DC a month before. The Republican nominee for governor in Arizona - Kari Lake - opposes the busing schemes as political stunts that will make the immigration problem worse across the nation. The Texas busing plan showed signs of blowing up this week in Tennessee amid revelations of a flood asylum seekers in Chattanooga where they've been leaving buses while drivers sleep in local hotels.

Chattanooga Mayor Tim Kelly told the city council on Tuesday night that the Texas private charter company informed local officials that the buses will no longer run through there. That won't eliminate the challenges that Texas faces with a potential backlash in store from reports on migrants getting free rides from Texas taxpayers on buses across the eastern United States with plans to get off in places short of original destinations.

With migrants cleared to travel where they choose by the USBP, Texas charter drivers have no authority to prevent passengers from leaving buses on the state-sponsored trips. Migrants on one bus from Texas threatened to call the police when a driver refused to stop in Tennessee before giving in and letting them off based on a report today in the conservative tabloid the New York Post.

With the busing program in an apparent ditch, the governor may find little solace in statistics that make things look a little better and knock added luster off the Texas transportation service that's bypassing Chattanooga now.

more to come ...

 
 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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