Fake news gonna fake news! A report posted last week showed ABC News’ Martha Raddatz suggesting that the only thing causing illegal aliens to rush into the United States via the southern border is rhetoric by Republicans such as former President Donald Trump, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), and Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) rather than the policies of the Biden administration.
“You talk about the border wall. You talk about open borders. I don’t think I’ve ever heard President Biden say, ‘We have an open border, come on over.’ But the people I have heard say it are you, or former President Trump, or Ron DeSantis,” Raddatz told Abbott on ABC’s “This Week.”
“That message reverberates in Mexico and beyond. So they do get the message that it is an open border, and smugglers use all those kinds of statements,” added the so-called ‘reporter.’
Abbott rejected Raddatz’s implied assertion that Biden is not encouraging illegal immigration at the southern border, stating, “It was known from the time that Joe Biden got elected — that Joe Biden supported open borders.”
“It is known by the cartels that have sophisticated information, whether the Biden administration is going to enforce the immigration laws or not,” continued the Republican governor. “It’s known across the world, but most importantly known among the cartels.”
“And how do you play into that? What can you do better?” Raddatz asked.
Abbott replied that his state has “every level of government doing everything [it] can to prevent people from coming into the country illegally, or repelling them, or arresting them and putting them behind bars.”
While it is clear policies from the Biden administration are likely exacerbating the crisis at the southern border, some conservatives are not convinced that Abbott has done enough himself to address the issue.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson pressed Abbott on why he has not made more of an effort to stop illegal immigration into his state given the Biden administration’s failure to do so.
“Governor Abbott, thank you very much for coming on. So just a very clear question why two years ago not say, ‘I’m the governor of Texas. They’re messing with Texas. I have a military foresight command, it’s called the National Guard, we’re going to block the border and save the country. Why didn’t you do that? Why aren’t you doing that now?” Carlson asked.
Abbott countered by saying that not all 19,000 of the state’s National Guard members are physically located in Texas and that many are “actually in other countries at this time.”
Carlson then asked if Abbott was “boasting” about the fact that many Guard members are abroad and if he thinks it’s “perverse” that they are helping other countries rather than their own.
Tucker Carlson grills Texas Gov. Greg Abbott over why he hasn't deployed the National Guard to the border. pic.twitter.com/FZWwQ3qMmQ
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) December 22, 2022
The Texas governor responded by dodging the question.
