MCALLEN, Texas — Texas Governor Greg Abbott is requesting that the federal government step up their game as yet another humanitarian takes place on the Texas border. The governor pointed out that Mexican cartels are largely to blame for the problem.
Last year, hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants crossed illegally into Texas and ended up overwhelming the capabilities of the federal government.
This year it is happening all over again, according to a letter that Abbott sent to Homeland Security Director Jeh Johnson.
“I am writing to express my alarm, and to request your help, regarding the significant increase in immigrants who are once again pouring across our border illegally,” Abbott wrote in the letter obtained by Breitbart Texas. “According to U.S. Border Patrol reports, nearly 10,000 immigrant families and unaccompanied children were detained after illegally crossing the Southwest border in August, an increase of more than 50 percent over August 2014.”
The trend presents a threat to national sovereignty and presents a financial strain to states moneys that are used to cover health, education and welfare costs, the governor stated.
“As you know, the problem is compounded by the drug cartels and transnational gang enterprises that are involved in this illegal cross border activity, Abbott wrote. “The illegal border crossings often serve as camouflage for hostile transnational criminal organizations that bring drugs, human trafficking, home invasions, kidnapping and other heinous acts to Texas.”
The porous border in Texas allows Mexican cartels to profit mightily from smuggling people, drugs, other products or selling would-be immigrants into sex slavery–the cartels get rich, the governor stated.
In order to help deal with the cartel driven immigration surge, Abbott asked Jeh Johnson to send 250 additional Border Patrol agents to the Texas border, to send 5 aerostats and for continuing partnerships in running the two detention facilities in Texas used to house illegal immigrants.
Abbott also asked for DHS to provide “a listing of the conditions under which individuals will be released to relatives or to private organizations in Texas communities, to include screening procedures, and into what agencies’ or entities’ custody the individuals will be released and under what premise they will be kept.”
In the letter Abbott mentions that Texas has been assertive in helping secure the border.
“But given recent reports that our southern border has become more porous not less, it is clearer than ever that the federal government must act to reverse the tide of this mounting crisis,” the governor wrote.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award winning journalist with Breitbart Texas you can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook.
Read the full letter here