The governor of Texas invited thirteen other governors, all Republicans, this Sunday, February 4, to defend his refusal to let border guards cut barbed wire and other systems supposed to prevent the passage of migrants.
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With our correspondent in Houston, Thomas Harms
To UNITED STATES, American migration policy is one of the major issues of the presidential campaign. While an immigration law is being negotiated in Washington, the standoff between the Texan authorities and the Biden administration continues to play out in the small town of Eagle Pass.
Posing in front of two Texan military vehicles and armed men, Governor Greg Abbott was again in the town of Eagle Pass, to hammer home the message of the Republican Party. The border with Mexico would be open and the administration Biden would do nothing. “ Now that we have control of this area, in the last three days, only three people have entered illegally. This shows that the State of Texas can do what the federal government is charged with doing and has the equipment to do it. Joe Biden : It’s your turn now! “, exclaimed Greg Abbott.
According to elected Democrats in the Eagle Pass region, the arrival of the governors is just a simple communications operation. According to them, the drop in border crossing figures is in fact due to Mexican authorities who launched operations to reduce the flow of migrants. Already, during the visit of Mike Johnson, the leader of the deputies to the House of Representatives, at the beginning of January, there were no shocking images to show, and no immense lines of migrants waiting to enter the States -United.
But the arrival of the governors coincides with the convoy of more than a hundred vehicles of self-proclaimed “army of God” descending on a ranch 30 minutes from Eagle Pass. The organizers of this convoy called “Let’s take back our border” were expecting tens of thousands of people. There were actually 200 to 300 of them.
Many of the country’s most radical representatives present
The convoy turned into a camp on a border ranch with speeches, prayers, three revivalist baptisms, but also the presence of Sarah Palin, Alex Jones of the far-right American site Infowars, singer Ted Nugent and a good number of representatives of the most radical groups in the country. Some, like Misty who went in front of the barbed wire, are nevertheless disappointed not to see any lines of migrants, nor to see the invasion relayed by pro-Trump television channels. “ It’s surreal. I can tell you it’s not as bad as I thought “, explains Misty.
Meanwhile, residents of Eagle Pass rallied in opposition to the so far unproblematic entry of radical groups into their town and insisted that they felt, for the first time, unsafe in their town. .
This weekend, a border guard center was reportedly evacuated of its asylum seekers after receiving fire threats from members of the far-right convoy.
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