President Joe Biden's administration is "aiding and abetting" drug cartels at the nation's southern border, leading to the record numbers of migrants coming into the country, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Sunday.
"We've got the Biden administration aiding and abetting the cartels, encouraging the cartels to make billions of dollars and to bring as many people here as fast as possible, and as soon as possible," Paxton, a Republican, said on Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures." "They're not just not doing their job, they're actually encouraging the opposite."
But when Texas tries to do something about the problem, "they threaten us from enforcing our laws. It seems pretty crazy, and it's hard to believe that we have a government that is working against its own citizens and helping the cartels move as many people across the border as possible."
Paxton's comments came in response to news concerning a massive migrant caravan, estimated to consist of more than 15,000 people heading to the U.S. border, and to the news that migrant numbers broke records for monthly encounters in December.
Paxton also on Sunday commented about the Department of Justice warning state leaders last week that Texas will face legal action if it implements a new law that allows local law enforcement officers to arrest migrants entering the United States illegally.
"This threat of a lawsuit is because we merely want to protect our own citizens from the crime and the cost of illegal immigration, when it's really their job to do it," said Paxton.
The attorney general talked about mayors of Democrat-led sanctuary cities who are speaking out against the high numbers of migrants who are being sent to their cities.
"All of these cities during the Trump administration created sanctuary cities and discouraged the Trump administration from blocking the border and keeping these illegals from coming across," said Paxton. "Now that the Biden administration is allowing them, and they're getting a few hundred or a few thousand versus the literally hundreds of thousands, if not millions, that the border states are getting."
He added that it's "a little ironic" that the mayors are blaming Texas, "when all we're doing is dealing with a much more significant problem."
Paxton also on Sunday spoke out about the administration's visit to Mexico last week and said that the Mexican government can do more to help the United States with the migrant surge.
While former President Donald Trump was in office, the Mexican government did more because Trump "insisted on it," said Paxton.
"There is no doubt that the cartels have been incentivized," he said. "They're making billions of dollars.They make $8,000 to $12,000 a person that they bring, so they're incentivized to bring as many people as possible."
And now, the cartels are taking migrants directly to the Border Patrol rather than trying to sneak them in, said Paxton, accusing the administration to be in partnership with the cartels.
"The border now is clear for their trafficking of drugs and other things that they make money off of, so they're building this network not just in Mexico, but across the country," said Paxton.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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