Texas Governor Greg Abbott promised on Thursday to build "many more miles" of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
"Texas sees huge drop in border crossings as we bolster our border security," Abbott wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter. "Our National Guard are adding more razor wire barriers and we are adding many more miles of the border wall."
The post by Abbott comes shortly after Newsweek published a report showing that illegal migrant encounters in Texas have declined over the past month, as Abbott has taken extensive measures to secure the U.S.-Mexico border.
Data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection shows that in January there were 68,260 illegal migrant encounters at the border in Texas. Comparatively, in December and November, there were 149,806 and 111,129, respectively.
While the number in January shows a decline, it is still up from previous years, as data for January 2020 shows 44,414 illegal migrant encounters in Texas at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling aligning with President Joe Biden and ordering Abbott to remove razor wire and other barriers that were placed along the U.S.-Mexico border near Eagle Pass.
Abbott has since defied the ruling, leaving razor wire in place and saying on Thursday that the state plans to add more.
"The failure of the Biden Administration to fulfill the duties imposed by Article IV, § 4 has triggered Article I, § 10, Clause 3, which reserves to this State the right of self-defense," Abbott said in a statement earlier this month responding to the Supreme Court ruling. "For these reasons, I have already declared an invasion under Article I, § 10, Clause 3 to invoke Texas's constitutional authority to defend and protect itself. That authority is the supreme law of the land and supersedes any federal statutes to the contrary."
Republicans have repeatedly criticized Biden for his handling of the border, and the House recently voted to pass an impeachment resolution against Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
"This impeachment already failed once on a bipartisan vote. Instead of staging political stunts like this, Republicans with genuine concerns about the border should want Congress to deliver more border resources and stronger border security," Biden said in a statement following the impeachment vote. "We will continue pursuing real solutions to the challenges Americans face, and House Republicans have to decide whether to join us to solve the problem or keep playing politics with the border."
Newsweek reached out to Abbott's office via email for comment.
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Matthew Impelli is a Newsweek staff writer based in New York. His focus is reporting social issues and crime. In ... Read more
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