AUSTIN, Texas – Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced what some believed to be an unbelievable border crossing statistic on a February episode of “Face the Nation.” Abbott said, “Already this calendar year, since Jan. 1, we have had more than 20,000 people come across the border, apprehended, unauthorized.”
The statement came in response to a question from CBS reporter Bob Schieffer. Abbott was asked if Republicans in Congress should proceed to fully funding the Department of Homeland Security rather than the plan to defund the President’s executive action granting amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants.
Abbott said the 20,000 immigrants captured after crossing the Texas/Mexico was proof there was an ongoing problem that “Congress must step up and solve.”
Politifact challenged Abbotts 20,000 captured immigrants assertion and went to work to check it out. Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) spokesman Tom Vinger responded to an inquiry from Politifact and provided the watchdog group with a February 18th “Texas Border Security Dashboard” that showed more than 21,000 “Illegal aliens” were captured during the first six weeks of the year.
While Politifact was not able to verify the DPS numbers with the U.S. Border Patrol, they determined Governor Abbott’s statement to be “True.”
Politifact defines “True” as, “The statement is accurate and there’s nothing significant missing.”
Breitbart Texas previously reported on Abbott’s appearance on the national Sunday morning news show:
“We all saw what happened on the Texas border last summer, but we need to understand that the problem is not going away,” said Abbott.
“Already this calendar year, since January 1, we have had more than 20,000 people come across the border, apprehended, unauthorized. And so we have an ongoing problem on the border that Congress must step up and solve.”
Schieffer also asked Abbott what he plans to do with the estimated 800,000 illegal immigrants who are already in Texas. Abbott replied that in addition to Congress acting to fund border security and address the immigration issue, “the president himself said as these people were coming across the border that he would repatriate them as soon as possible. So, we need to see whether or not the president himself is going to live up to the commitment that he made.”
A report by the Texas DPS that was leaked by the Houston Chronical in February, detailed the plans for funding, equipment, and technology the state’s top law enforcement agency plans to request from the Governor and State Legislature. Breitbart Texas reported on these details and this week, the Texas Legislature began to file legislation to turn these border security plans into reality.
Bob Price is a senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas and a member of the original Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and on Facebook.
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