Texas Gov. Greg Abbott says illegal border crossings that were in the thousands under former President Joe Biden have now dropped to the single digits in some areas under President Donald Trump.
“I was with some officials from El Paso last night, and they said that where there had been 3,000 people crossing the border, sometimes a day, just in El Paso, there were now nine — nine people a day,” Abbott said Tuesday in an interview with CNBC’s Joe Kernen on “Squawk Box.”
Trump launched a crackdown on illegal immigration on his first day back in office after running on fixing Biden’s border crisis. He has resumed construction of the border wall, is asking illegal immigrants to “self-deport” by using his administration’s CBP Home app to facilitate their removal from the country, and has invoked the Alien Enemies Act, which allows the president to imprison or deport persons who are not citizens.
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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott says illegal border crossings that were in the thousands under former President Joe Biden are now shrinking to single digits under President Donald Trump. (Photo: CNBC screenshot)
Abbott said the reception illegal immigrants receive once crossing into the country is very different from what it was under Biden. Under Trump, he said, the law is being enforced.
“The people who do make it across the border now, they are immediately arrested and then deported, and as a result, discouraging people from entering the border again,” the governor said.
“We’ve never seen a change as much as we saw four years ago, and now this year, with regard to what’s happening on the border,” Abbott said.
“What began happening four years ago, of course, was a complete failure to enforce the immigration laws of the United States of America,” he added. “And as a result, we saw an all-time record number of people crossing the border illegally, more than 11 million people, including people who are known murderers, rapists and gang members and cartel members. And as a result, the crime across the country skyrocketed.”
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This screenshot shows functionality from the CBP Home app. (DHS)
“Now, in the immediate aftermath of the Trump election and Trump taking office, it’s gone from 11 million people across the border illegally to just a trickle, as in, just a handful of people,” Abbott said.
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