AUSTIN, Texas — Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) asked states to step up and deploy military and police down south to help the Lone Star State continue to respond to the Biden-era border crisis in the aftermath of Title 42 ending last week.

The three-term governor sent letters to governors nationwide Tuesday urging them to send people and resources to Texas, arguing the Lone Star State shouldn't have to shoulder the financial burden alone to deal with the influx of people and drugs.

“In the federal government’s absence, we, as Governors, must band together to combat President Biden’s ongoing border crisis and ensure the safety and security that all Americans deserve," Abbott wrote in the letter. "Join us in the mission to defend our national sovereignty and territorial integrity and send all available law enforcement personnel and resources to the Texas-Mexico border to serve alongside our thousands of Texas National Guard soldiers and Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) troopers."

Abbott said the move was justified through the Emergency Management Assistance Compact, which permits states to send money to other states in times of disaster or emergency. The border crisis, Abbott argued, constituted a disaster and an emergency.

Across the southern border, 4.6 million illegal immigrants have been encountered by Border Patrol from February 2021 to March of this year, according to a Washington Examiner analysis of data published by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Of the 4.6 million, more than 3 million were apprehended in five Texas-based Border Patrol sectors, which includes the New Mexico border.

In the spring of 2021, Abbott announced Operation Lone Star and has dispatched more than 10,000 Department of Public Safety officers and National Guard soldiers across the state's 1,250-mile border with Mexico as Border Patrol agents were pulled inside at higher numbers to process the rising number of people in custody.

Texas has spent $4.5 billion on border security operations since 2021, and the state legislature is considering an additional $4.6 billion for the next two years.

Two years ago, state police and soldiers from half a dozen other states were sent in to help Texas but pulled out several months later due to mounting costs.

Currently, Florida and Idaho each have military and law enforcement dispatched to the Texas border.

Texas has also paid for buses that provide illegal immigrants permitted to remain in the U.S. with free transportation to major northern cities — a move intended to ease the burden on Texas bus, rail, and airports.

It has also hired its own border czar to oversee the operation and called for illegal immigrants who trespass on private land to be prosecuted for trespassing.