Moment Governor Abbott Hands Biden Migrant Crisis Letter Viewed 300k Times

A video of Texas Governor Greg Abbott handing President Joe Biden a letter demanding swift action on the situation at the southern border on Sunday has gone viral on social media after being watched by over 300,000 people.

In a recording of the meeting between the two at the airport in El Paso streamed live by MSNBC and later shared by several Twitter accounts on the platform, Abbott can be seen shaking Biden's hand before reaching to his jacket to extract a letter he then delivered to the president.

Biden can be seen looking at the letter for a brief time before folding back the paper and shaking Abbott's hand again, as the two talk for about one minute.

Some who watched the video online called Abbott's move a "political stunt," with one pointing out that Texas' Republican governor went "right to the cameras after" handing the letter to Biden. Similar claims were made last year after the Texas governor spent millions in state funds to bus migrants to Washington, D.C. and other Democrat-run cities.

Sunday's visit was Biden's first to the border since he became president in January 2021. It came only days after the president announced new measures to meet the recent surge in immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border which angered both migrant advocates and those asking for harsher measures at the border.

On Thursday January 5, Biden said that the U.S. will immediately begin expelling Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans who cross the border from Mexico illegally, calling for those aspiring to move to the U.S. to "not just show up at the border" and instead "apply legally" from where they are.

Those who cross the border illegally into the U.S. will be denied asylum by Homeland Security officials.

At the same time, the president said the country will accept 30,000 people per month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela for two years, as long as they enter the country legally.

After meeting the president on Sunday, Abbott told reporters that Biden caused the current "chaos at the border" and needed to visit Texas, but accused him of being "two years and about $20 billion too late."

He said he handed him a letter containing five solutions to the current situation at the southern border, and asked that the federal government reimburse the state of Texas for the money spent on border control.

Abbott later shared the content of the letter on his Twitter account, writing: "I'm calling on Biden to do his constitutional duty to protect our nation."

In the document, the governor accuses Biden of conducting a "sanitized" visit to the state, as his administration, he said, wants to "shield" the president "from the chaos that Texans experience on a daily basis."

Later on, he blames the president for causing the current situation in El Paso, where immigration centers have recently reported being overwhelmed by the numbers of migrants crossing the border into the city.

"This chaos is the direct result of your failure to enforce the immigration laws that Congress enacted," he wrote.

Newsweek contacted the White House and Abbott's team for comment.