Texas Gov. Abbott Calls for Investigation into Groups Assisting With Illegal Entry into US

By Bethany Blankley (The Center Square)

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has called for an investigation into the role non-governmental organizations are playing in helping foreign nationals illegally enter Texas from Mexico.

Abbott sent a letter Wednesday to Attorney General Ken Paxton requesting that his office “initiate an investigation into the role of NGOs in planning and facilitating the illegal transportation of illegal immigrants across our borders.”

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With the public health authority Title 42 slated to end Dec. 23, the number of people illegally entering Texas has reached an all-time high. Over a 24-hour period on Sunday, more than 2,600 people crossed the Rio Grande River near El Paso and illegally entered Texas.

Abbott writes, “there have been reports that NGOs may have assisted with” these illegal border crossings” and “may be engaged in unlawfully orchestrating other border crossings through activities on both sides of the border, including in sectors other than El Paso.”

Not only did he call for an investigation, but he also said he and the state legislature were willing to craft “any sensible legislative solutions” Paxton’s office might propose to solve “the ongoing border crisis and the role that NGOs may play in encouraging it.”

Abbott’s call came after Border Patrol El Paso Sector Chief Peter Jaquez announced, “Over the weekend, the El Paso Sector experienced a major surge in illegal crossings, with a 3-day average of 2,460 daily encounters, primarily through the downtown area of El Paso.”

The El Paso Sector, which covers two west Texas counties and all of New Mexico, has become a destination of illegal entry orchestrated by the cartels and the Mexican government. In November, the number who illegally entered the El Paso Sector was greater than the individual populations of all cities in New Mexico except for four.

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Fox News captured some of the crossings on video, saying one group of 1,000 was the largest single group it had ever recorded. It also reported that “Border Patrol now has over 5,000 in custody and has released hundreds to city streets.”

Prior to entering El Paso, the foreign nationals were “dropped off” at an NGO in Mexico before they crossed into Texas illegally, Fox News reported.

“Video from one of the passengers inside one of the migrant buses showing their Mexican police escort, as well as a photo of part of the huge group walking to the border after they were dropped off at NGOs in Ciudad Juarez,” Fox News reported.

Publishing video and photographs online, Fox News showed a caravan of nearly 20 buses full of foreign nationals being “escorted by Mexican police into Ciudad Juarez before they crossed en masse into El Paso.”

On Monday, BP Chief Raul Ortiz announced that BP agents in the last 48 hours reported more than 16,000 encounters with illegal foreign nationals along the entire southern border. They also confiscated over $97 million in narcotics and four firearms and apprehended three gang members, two sex offenders, and two murderers.

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This is after a record number of over 306,000 illegally entered the U.S. through the southern border in November, according to preliminary data obtained by The Center Square.

“These numbers are likely to increase in the coming weeks,” Abbott said. “Although the burden to address the ongoing border crisis should not fall to Texas, the federal government has failed to take action to address this problem.”

While Abbott has taken unprecedented action to secure the border, he has yet to officially declare an invasion and repel it, something the Republican Party of Texas and at least 40 county judges have called on him to do. The Texas Military Department and Texas law enforcement are not preventing illegal entry as evidenced by the surge at the border, which is only expected to intensify, critics argue.