Abbott: We don’t need 1,500 soldiers at the border, we need 15,000 or 150,000

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) slammed the Biden administration’s move to send 1,500 troops to the southern border, arguing the president was sending the soldiers to “do paperwork” and not “secure the border.”

“President Biden is sending 1,500, quote, soldiers to do paperwork, and he’s not going to secure the border,” Abbott said in an interview with Fox News Sunday.

The national focus on the southern border has increased as the federal government’s Title 42 policy, a federal rule that has allowed the government to strictly regulate border entries, gets set to expire this month.

Title 42 is a controversial Trump administration pandemic-era policy that has allowed the federal government to expel migrants who have come to the border claiming asylum. Biden and his team have continued to defend the use of the policy, as immigration advocates argue it is a violation of federal and international law.

The movement of troops to the southern border from the White House comes as the policy is set to expire on Thursday, with a surge of migrants expected. But Abbott, who has very publicly clashed with and called out the president for his border policies, said more manpower than that was needed.

“We do not need 1,500 soldiers,” Abbott said. “We need 15,000 or 150,000 to secure the border because of the open border policies of the Biden administration.”

When pressed on accepting similar types of reinforcements from the Trump administration, Abbott said he supported the move from the Republican president because “President Trump sent soldiers to the border to secure the border.”

“This is a day late and tens of thousands of soldiers too few,” Abbott said.

The Republican governor also criticized Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for his recent visit to the border, during which the secretary, who has been perhaps the most highly criticized member of Biden’s Cabinet, argued the border “is not open, it has not been open.”

“He says that the border is closed,” Abbott said Sunday. “Everybody in America knows that the border is not closed and it’s more open.”