Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) offered the Trump administration access to 4,000 vacant prison beds across Texas for the federal government’s detention of illegal immigrants in custody.
Abbott’s pitch during a White House appearance Wednesday and again on cable news that night comes as Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have had to release 461 illegal immigrants into the United States due to a shortfall in ICE detention space.
“There have been a total of 461 illegal aliens … that have been released from custody of the more than 8,000 that have been arrested since President Trump was inaugurated,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a White House press conference Wednesday afternoon. “It’s less than 6%.”
The figure pales in comparison to the several million illegal immigrants admitted into the country from the southern border during former President Joe Biden’s administration.
While visiting Washington on Wednesday, Abbott made a personal appeal to President Donald Trump with the offering of thousands of prison beds in his southern border state. Abbott spoke with Trump earlier in the day about how the federal government could use state resources and facilities to detain more immigrants rather than release them.
During an interview with CNN host Jake Tapper late Wednesday, Abbott said he told Trump, “We have identified about 4,000 prison beds in the state of Texas that can be used by the Trump administration for holding facilities, for detention facilities, for imprisonment of people who have been arrested for committing crimes who are here illegally.”
The state also offered up two military bases on the border in Del Rio and Eagle Pass, Texas, where the federal government could, if necessary, house up to 2,500 federal military and law enforcement officers surged to assist at the border. The military bases would not house immigrants.
The 461 immigrants who illegally crossed the southern border and were subsequently allowed to remain in the U.S. fell under certain exceptions to normal protocols that would render them easily deportable.
“Those released are not immigrants who have been arrested” by ICE agents, Leavitt said. “There are reasons for their release. Some of the factors include a lack of significant likelihood of removal in the foreseeable future, lack of detention availability, which is something this president and this administration has been incredibly vocal about.
“Other serious medical conditions have also been the reasons for some of the releases of these individuals, but none of them have final deportation orders,” Leavitt continued. “Many of them are probably contesting their immigration status.”
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In other words, those released might have made initial claims for asylum or be ineligible for quick removals for other reasons.
On his first day in office, Trump declared a national emergency at the southern border and suspended the admission of illegal immigrants associated with the “invasion.”