Governor Abbott announces new Texas Tactical Border Force ahead of Title 42 deadline
Austin, Texas – Eight people have died after a driver collided with a group of migrants Sunday in the Texas border town of Brownsville, and 10 others were injured.
Governor Greg Abbott is unveiling a new specialized border response force, called the Texas Tactical Border Force, this morning at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.
All of the crash victims were believed to be Venezuelan migrants awaiting the end of Title 42, an emergency restriction on immigration.
It was officially a public health measure during the COVID-19 pandemic and will expire on May 11 when the public health emergency ends.
US officials are preparing for border crossings to ramp up at the end of Title 42, potentially handling up to 10,000 people a day.
On May 2, the Department of Defense announced it would deploy 1,500 active-duty troops to the southern border to assist border patrol officers.
The Biden administration has said it will use a new expedited removal process to deport migrants and prevent them from returning for 5 years.
This should go hand-in-hand with another previously announced policy that says a migrant must prove that he or she has sought refuge in another country before arriving in the U.S.
Governor Abbott spoke on FOX News Sunday, saying, “President Trump has sent soldiers to the border to protect the border. President Biden is sending 1,500, quote, ‘soldiers’ to do paperwork. This is not going to secure the border. We need 1,500 soldiers, we need 15,000 or 150,000 to secure the border due to the Biden administration’s open border policies. This is a day late and tens of thousands of soldiers are too few.”
Title 42 allowed the government to expel migrants more than 2.7 million times from the southern border.
Watch Good Day Austin for live updates on Governor Abbott’s announcement:
