AUSTIN, Texas — Texas Gov. Greg Abbott this week issued an executive order directing Department of Public Safety troopers to initiate traffic stops on vehicles suspected of transporting migrants.
Troopers are further directed to turn the drivers around to their point or port of origin. They're also authorized to impound those vehicles if that’s not possible.
Troopers can initiate traffic stops based on “reasonable suspicion.”
Abbott said the order was issued to prevent migrants from bringing COVID-19 into Texas, which is dealing with a sharp uptick in cases and hospitalizations.
The order has created a lot of controversy, with critics stating that if the order is followed it would constitute racial profiling. Now, President Joe Biden’s Justice Department is involved.
Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday sent a letter to Abbott in which he said Texas has “no authority to interfere” with the federal government’s broad powers of immigration and raised the potential of a lawsuit if the order was not lifted.
“I urge you to immediately rescind Executive Order GA 3 7, entitled Relating to the transportation of migrants during the COVID-19 disaster,” Garland wrote. “The Order purports to mandate that ‘[n]o person, other than a federal, state, or local law-enforcement official, shall provide ground transportation to a group of migrants who have been detained by [U.S. Customs and Border Protection] for crossing the border illegally or who would have been subject to expulsion under the Title 42 order.; EO GA 37 if 1. As explained below, the Order is both dangerous and unlawful.”
Abbott responded to Garland, largely shrugging the Justice Department off and insisting the Biden administration doesn’t understand the threat posed by the influx of border crossers.
“It is clear that the Biden Administration fundamentally misunderstands what is truly happening at the Texas-Mexico border,” he wrote. “The current crisis at our southern border, including the overcrowding of immigration facilities and the devastating spread of COVID-19 that the influx of non-citizens is causing, is entirely the creation of the Biden Administration and its failed immigration policies.”
Abbott goes on to state that many of the border crossers are testing positive for COVID-19 but doesn’t attribute the increase in cases to the fact that a large portion of the state’s population remains unvaccinated.
The directive is not the first time during the pandemic that Abbott has put focus on migrants and the virus’ spread at a time of heightened worry over COVID-19. He raised similar worries over migrants in March — without providing any evidence that they were causing increased COVID-19 caseloads — which came as he faced criticism from public health officials for lifting a statewide mask mandate.
Abbott is now again facing calls to impose new coronavirus safeguards as the spread of the COVID-19 delta variant is raising infections. But he says he will not order new lockdowns or re-impose mask mandates.
“Blaming the current coronavirus surge on immigrants in his executive order, is a flagrant attempt to absolve his ineffective leadership that ultimately led to the unnecessary loss of life of our fellow Texans,” Democratic state Rep. Rafael Anchia said.
Large numbers of migrants have been showing up at the U.S. border with Mexico, with many turning themselves over to U.S. Border Patrol agents in seeking legal asylum status. U.S. officials reported this month that they had encountered 55,805 members of families with children in June, up 25% from the previous month. That figure still remains far below the high of 88,587 in May 2019.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.