Republican Slams Greg Abbott for Not Stopping Border 'Invasion'

Texas Governor Greg Abbott received criticism from within the Republican Party on his handling of border crossings amid news of another influx of migrants while he says he's taking "unprecedented action to secure our border."

Ken Cuccinelli is a GOP politician who previously served as the Attorney General of Virginia from 2010 to 2014, and as an acting Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security during the final two years of the Trump administration. In recent years, he has been outspoken on the subject of the Southern U.S. border with Mexico, calling for crossing migrants to be treated as an invasion and sent back immediately.

On Monday, Cuccinelli retweeted a post from local Fox affiliate reporter Bill Melugin detailing a recent migrant crossing of over 1,000 people into El Paso, Texas, which he claimed was "the largest single group we have ever seen." Cuccinelli called for Governor Abbott to treat such crossings as an invasion, as he had previously declared last month.

"Texas could stop this in the middle of the river. Itself. W/o federal permission," Cuccinelli tweeted. "But so far, despite [Governor Abbott] declaring that TX is being invaded (under Art. I, Sec. 10, Cl. 3), he still won't treat it like an invasion. I.e., returning illegal border crossers back into Mexico."

Abbott invoked Texas's Invasion Clauses on November 14 in relation to the border, after making border security a key theme of his successful reelection campaign against Democrat Beto O'Rourke. The invocation allows the state government to "take unprecedented measures to fight back against the invasion at our border." It also allows for the National Guard to be deployed to the border and allows Texas Department of Public Safety agents to arrest undocumented immigrants and send them to the border.

Cuccinelli was critical of Abbott's declaration from the start, despite being one of the leading voices calling for the invocation of the Invasion Clauses. In a response from last month, he took issue with the fact that the declaration did not involve the seizing of federal authority to send migrants back over the border and dismissed it as a "PR stunt."

"While this sounds good—Governor Abbott has not invoked the full authority of an invasion declaration," Cuccinelli said in a joint statement released by Citizens for Renewing America. "Saying you are being invaded but not blocking the invaders from coming is a hollow shell. Until Governor Abbott removes illegals back across the border and out of the country, this will continue to be a PR stunt–and Texas and the U.S. are worse off because of it."

While Cuccinelli continues to criticize Abbott's handling of the border, the governor on Friday announced the formation of an "elite taskforce" to track down migrants who evade border patrol agents, among other tasks.

"As part of Operation Lone Star, DPS recently launched a new elite border taskforce that includes tracking K9s and drone operators to detect, track down, and apprehend the record numbers of gotaways into the United States," the announcement explained. "The taskforce will also gather intelligence, disrupt human smuggling, and identify scouts. More than 73,000 gotaways were reported in November alone, and in fiscal year 2022 there were nearly 600,000 gotaways—a stark increase from about 389,000 gotaways in fiscal year 2021."

Newsweek reached out to Abbott's office for comment.