Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday vowed that he would continue to bus migrants out of the Lone Star State “until we get a new president.”
Abbott, 66, explained the origins of the busing program and why he decided to send more than 40,000 migrants to New York City — which he claimed wasn’t initially part of the plan — in a speech at the New York Republican Party’s annual gala in Manhattan.
The governor said he decided to start busing migrants out of Texas after local officials expressed concern with the number of migrants that were being apprehended at the border only to be dropped off in their communities by federal authorities.
Abbott claimed that at first, the plan was to only bus migrants to Washington, DC, because “neither Joe Biden nor the border czar [Vice President Kamala Harris] had actually been to the border to see the chaos and cost.”
“And so my thought process was if they’re not going to come to the border, we’re going to take the border to them,” he explained.
The governor claimed that he expanded the busing program to include New York City only after receiving criticism from Mayor Eric Adams.
“Quite literally out of nowhere Eric Adams starts criticizing me for sending them to New York City,” Abbott recalled.
“We made clear, by contacting his office, and said, ‘We’re not sending them to New York.’ We issued press releases to the press saying we’re not sending migrants to New York — that’s Joe Biden sending them to New York.”
Abbott claimed that when criticism from NYC officials wouldn’t stop, he decided that “If I’m going to get the criticism, I want to get the credit.”
“And thus began the busing of illegal immigrants to the sanctuary city of New York City.”
A spokesman for Adams disputed Abbott’s claim and the timeline of when the busing program expanded to New York City.
More than 107,000 migrants have been bused out of the Lone Star State since April 2022, according to Abbott’s office.
“We are going to have to maintain this process until we get a new president next November who will secure the border of the United States of America,” Abbott vowed.
Former President Donald Trump, the presumptive 2024 GOP nominee, has floated picking Abbott as his running mate, but the governor has downplayed having any interest in the role.
In his keynote address to GOP officials in the Empire State, Abbott railed against Biden’s border policies, arguing that the 81-year-old commander in chief’s decision to eliminate measures aimed at curbing illegal immigration implemented by Trump have led to “chaos” and have created an “extraordinarily dangerous” situation.
“Texas is ground zero for the broken border policy imposed by Joe Biden,” Abbott said.
“You know, the chaos that we’ve seen across the entire country — it seems like it’s been going on for so long that we can so easily forget that it was just four years ago that we had the lowest illegal border crossings in 45 years,” he added, praising Trump for implementing “Remain in Mexico” and Title 42, eliminating “catch and release” and building more walls along the US border with Mexico.
Abbott noted that the Biden administration has phased out all those measures, leading to “the equivalent of the entirety of the population of New York City” to illegally enter the US in the last three years.
“All time records have been set with regard to the number of people on the terrorist watch lists, who’ve been apprehended” at the border, Abbott claimed.
“What none of us know right now is how many terrorists on the watch list evaded detection,” he warned.
Abbott suggested that when Biden claims he needs Congress to pass legislation to secure the border, the president is either “lying,” has “no idea what he’s talking about” or both.
“The executive branch has not only the authority but the requirement, the mandate by Congress, to deny illegal entry into the United States. Biden is not doing that.”
“He’s aiding and abetting illegal entry into the United States.”