Texas Governor Demands Biden Provide COVID Vaccines for Border Patrol ‘This Week’

Texas Governor Greg Abbott expressed outrage after learning the Biden Administration has not provided COVID-19 vaccinations to Border Patrol agents. Abbott called the lack of vaccinations “one of the most reprehensible things I’ve heard.”

“What I am about to tell you may be one of the most reprehensible things I’ve heard this whole time,” he said. “The Biden Administration is not providing vaccinations for the Border Patrol.”

The governor’s comments came during a press conference in Mission, Texas, on Tuesday after receiving a briefing from Rio Grande Valley Sector Border Patrol officials.

“We have Border Patrol [agents] whose lives are on the line of a daily basis — an hourly basis — and the Biden Administration will not provide those Border Patrol [agents] with the vaccinations they need” the outraged governor stated. “The Biden Administration should surge vaccines to Texas to all men and women on the Border Patrol this week.”

“Anything less than that is the epitome of inhumanity,” Abbot stated.

The governor reminded reporters that Border Patrol agents work for the federal government.

“They should be provided a vaccine by the federal government,” he explained. “The federal government has made a priority of vaccinating other federal government employees that are not on the front line like the Border Patrol. And that’s why I have this expectation that the Border Patrol agents, who are on the front line, be treated like other federal employees that have already been vaccinated by the federal government.”

“That’s why I demand that the president send vaccines to the Border Patrol this week to vaccinate our Border Patrol agents.”

Border Patrol agents are frequently exposed to migrants infected with the Coronavirus. In September, Breitbart Texas reported about agents rescuing a migrant woman who fell unconscious after being pulled out of a grain hopper rail car. Agents worked to save the woman’s life and later learned she tested positive for COVID-19.

“With a noted increase in COVID-19 infections among detainees, smugglers continue showing their lack of regard for the safety of the people they exploit by placing them in compromising, cramped spaces without regard to high temperatures, PPE, or means of escape,” Laredo Sector officials stated. “In doing so, not only do they endanger those being smuggled, but they also endanger our agents and communities.”

The city of Brownsville, Texas, reported last week that six percent of the migrants being released at bus stations by Border Patrol officials tested positive for COVID-19. All of these migrants were in contact with multiple Border Patrol agents and other CBP employees and contractors.