ABC News reporter Martha Raddatz called out Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and two other prominent Republicans for sending a “message” to migrants on the security of the US-Mexico border.
Raddatz talked to the GOP governor for a report on Wednesday’s expiration of a Donald Trump immigration policy that allowed the “rapid expulsion” of migrants. The policy, imposed in March 2020 due to COVID-19 pandemic-related concerns, barred over 2 million migrants at the border, ABC reported.
Raddatz grilled Abbott for his previous claims of an “open border” that he said sent a message that “reverberates in Mexico.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard President Joe Biden say ‘We have an open border, come on over,’” Raddatz said.
“But people I have heard say it is you, former President Trump, Ron DeSantis. That message reverberates in Mexico and beyond. So they do get the message that it is an open border and smugglers use all those kinds of statements.”
Abbott later said “it was known from the time that Joe Biden got elected that Joe Biden supported open borders.” He said smugglers know whether Biden will enforce immigration laws.
Raddatz pressed further: “How do you play into that? What can you do better?”
The use of the term “open border” to describe Biden’s policy, PolitiFact found, has been “inconsistent” with his immigration stance, as he’s “still supported security measures at the border.”
“We don’t have an open border. That’s absurd,” Terence Garrett, political science professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, told the publication.
Watch more from Raddatz’s interview with Abbott below.