Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) responded to Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s request that he stop sending migrants to Chicago, saying that he will not stop busing people to the city and that Lightfoot should call on President Biden to secure the border.
“As the mayor of a self-declared sanctuary city, it is ironic to hear you complain about Chicago’s struggle to deal with a few thousand illegal immigrants, which is a fraction of the record-high numbers we deal with in Texas on a regular basis,” Abbott wrote in a letter to Lightfoot on Monday.
Abbott wrote that ending Title 42 expulsions will “open the floodgates” to increased numbers of migrants entering the United States. He said that according to the government, more than 13,000 people could cross the U.S.-Mexico border every day once the Title 42 expulsions end later this month.
The Biden administration has been preparing to address the expected surge of migrants entering the U.S. once Title 42 expulsions end on May 11.
Lightfoot sent a letter to Abbott on Sunday urging him to stop bussing migrants to Chicago, saying that the city has “no more shelters, spaces, or resources” to address another influx of migrants to the city. Abbott said that the solution to Lightfoot’s request is asking Biden to implement stricter border policies, vowing that he will not stop sending migrants to cities, including Chicago, until Biden addresses it.
“If you truly want to ‘work together to find a real solution’ to this border crisis gripping our nation, you must call on the Biden Administration to do its job by securing our border, repelling the illegal immigrants flooding into our communities, classifying the Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, and intercepting the deadly fentanyl that is endangering our country,” Abbott wrote.
“You are right that ‘this situation is completely untenable,’ but this is not a Texas problem—this is a problem for the entire United States of America,” he added.
Lightfoot responded to the governor’s letter on Twitter Monday, blasting him for calling those seeking asylum “illegal immigrants.”
“Here’s the response from the politician who continues to race to the bottom to score political points with no regard for the human lives involved or the consequences,” she tweeted. “And to be clear asylum seekers paroled into the U.S. are not “illegal immigrants.” Shameful but sadly expected.”