Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton visited Washington, D.C., earlier this week to meet with federal legislators as part of the Republican official’s efforts to address the rise of illegal immigration at the southern border largely happening in his home state.
The conversations build on months of work from the Texas attorney general to push the Biden administration to change its border policies, even going so far as to file nearly 50 lawsuits against the president since he took office in January 2021.
MIKE GALLAGHER ARGUES IT'S TIME TO BAN TIKTOK AS APP IGNITES SYMPATHY FOR OSAMA BIN LADEN
“We're trying to protect our people because the consequences don't affect Joe Biden. They affect millions of Texans,” Paxton told the Washington Examiner in an interview. “So, we're trying to do our best to protect them because he's not only not trying to protect, he's affirmatively hurting them by allowing the cartels to bring people in [and] just hand them over.”
Paxton’s visit comes as congressional Republicans push for policy changes at the southern border, leveraging the border as a negotiation tactic in fights over federal spending. The House passed its landmark border security bill earlier this year that would make a number of changes to how the Department of Homeland Security operates, although that piece of legislation has sat dormant in the Democratic-led Senate for several months. Meanwhile, Senate Republicans are demanding border policy changes in exchange for further aid to Ukraine.
Like many of those Republican lawmakers advocating stronger border restrictions, Paxton said he isn’t interested in lobbying the federal government for more money. Rather, the Texas attorney general said he wanted to offer his perspective as a local official who is dealing with the border crisis face to face.
“To be down there and talk to people that live there, the impact on their lives and the danger they feel. … They feel at risk,” he said. “We know what works. We saw it in the Trump administration.”
Paxton said he wasn’t pushing for specific policy changes to lawmakers, acknowledging that many of his recommendations to return to Trump-era policies may not get through the Senate with a Democratic majority. However, he said his goal is to ensure Congress “knows what we think” as local officials and encourage them to make changes.
“I'd much rather have Congress passing things that further protect us and fund things that will protect us like a wall, instead of what we're dealing with where we have the Feds cutting down our security measures, which is, you know, fences and wire,” Paxton said.
Paxton filed a lawsuit last month accusing the Biden administration of destroying the border wall in parts of the state by cutting the barbed wire and leaving open holes for cartels to smuggle in fentanyl. The lawsuit names several agencies and officials, including the DHS, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and Customs and Border Protection, among others.
The lawsuit accuses the federal government of cutting the concertina wire along the southern border, significantly “damaging Texas’s ability to effectively deter illegal entry into Texas."
“To watch this going on and watch how [cartels are] just controlling the border completely — and they're getting stronger because they've got so many resources,” Paxton said. “They're going to be established throughout the nation because the Biden administration has encouraged them to do that. People don't realize how evil this is for the nation.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
The lawsuit followed a decision by the Biden administration in early October to restart construction of barriers along South Texas, waiving a slew of federal laws to do so. The construction came in response to an increase in the number of border crossings over the last fiscal year, though Biden argued he was required by law to use border wall appropriations approved in 2019, before he became president.
U.S. border authorities arrested more than 2 million people who attempted to enter the country unlawfully from Mexico or Canada in fiscal 2023, according to data published last month. That number dealt a blow to the Biden administration, which had for months claimed its changes to border and immigration policies would reduce illegal crossings.