(Austin, TX)—Greg Abbott has signaled that his mission as governor of Texas is to unleash as much harm as possible against immigrants, while ignoring the real needs of Texans.
His latest anti-immigrant move came today when he ordered a Texas prison cleared—and those prisoners moved to another facility--so it could hold immigrants, a clear move to continue the mass criminalization of Black and Brown immigrants and further attempt to commandeer federal immigration policy. Just as he has done before, Governor Abbott uses hateful and offensive rhetoric against Texas immigrants in an attempt to preserve the Trump administration’s white supremacist agenda.
“Gov. Abbott clearly does not care about human rights, equality, or due process,” said Carolina Canizales, Senior Texas Campaign Strategist with the Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC). “He does not care that families are escaping incredible hardship in their native countries to come to the U.S. And he clearly does not care about Texans as he funnels hundreds of millions of dollars in state resources—and calls on donations—to build an unneeded border wall while ignoring economic, health, environmental, and other important issues, including power shortages plaguing the state.”
“The Biden Harris Administration cannot stand by quietly and allow Texas politicians to continue their attacks on immigrants, as it did by failing to challenge Judge Tipton’s ruling in the 100-day deportation moratorium lawsuit filed by Attorney General Ken Paxton. The administration must take action now and stop Abbott and other Texas politicians from their unhinged, racist, inhumane campaign before any more harm is done,” Canizales said. “No one should be allowed to wage such a barbaric operation in the U.S. against vulnerable people.”