Little more than a week after a horrific smuggling attempt left 53 people dead in San Antonio, Governor Greg Abbott promised a new border security strategy that doubles down on a century of policies that drive people to take dangerous routes into the United States.
Abbott’s new approach, which directs the Texas National Guard and Department of Public Safety to transport people they think are undocumented to U.S.-Mexico border crossings, will face court challenges and may end up being as much a publicity stunt as his promise to bus immigrants to Washington, D.C. But it highlights just how one-track the conversation about immigration is.
In his July executive order, Abbott invoked the 53 deaths in San Antonio, writing that “an immigrant’s journey to the United States can even prove fatal” and suggesting his border security measures would discourage unauthorized immigration.
