The Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, traveled to Texas to meet with Border Patrol agents and supervise their operations in the midst of the ongoing immigration crisis in the country.
The secretary's visit comes after he criticized Gov. Greg Abbott for increasing the number of Texas Department of Public Safety officers at the border dedicated to conducting inspections: "When state officials work unilaterally and don't coordinate or collaborate with us, they can actually cause havoc." The increase of state agents on the border with Mexico is part of Operation Lone Star, launched by Abbott to address the growing immigration crisis.
Position of the Biden Administration
The difference in approach between the Biden and Abbott Administrations was evidenced earlier this month when Border Patrol agents opened a fence that had been closed by the Texas National Guard, allowing hundreds of illegal immigrants to enter the country. In Texas, 17 counties have already formally qualified what is happening on the border as an invasion, and are asking Governor Abbott and President Biden for more resources.
It is not only in Texas that people talk about invasion: a survey conducted by the consulting firm Ipsos revealed that 54% of the total U.S. population describes the situation on the border with Mexico as "an invasion". Furthermore, even the 40% of those sympathetic to the Democratic Party criticize Biden's immigration policy, a fact that reflects the dissatisfaction with the president even among his own voters.
Mayorkas admitted that human smuggling operations had become more complex in recent decades and said that curbing the influx of illegal immigrants would require international collaboration:
We are working very closely with our partners in Mexico. In this regard, I believe we have initiated more than 4,000 prosecutions between the two countries. I believe that attacking smuggling organizations is what we need to continue.
