Donald Trump won the endorsement of Texas governor Greg Abbott at an event near the US-Mexico border Sunday, a location meant to highlight the former Republican president’s plans to crack down on immigration if he wins the 2024 White House race.
Trump, the frontrunner for the GOP nomination to challenge Democratic president Joe Biden next year, traveled to Edinburg, Texas, with his fellow Republican Abbott to visit national guard soldiers, state public safety department troopers and other service members stationed there.
Abbott said Biden’s border policies pose a danger to communities across the US. He credited Trump with cutting border crossings to the lowest point in decades during his presidency.
“I’m here to tell you that there is no way, no way that America can continue under the leadership of Joe Biden as our president. We need a president who’s going to secure the border,” Abbott said.
Trump said he was honored by Abbott’s endorsement.
“This meant a lot to me,” Trump said. “You’re not going to have to worry about the border any more, governor … you’re not going to have to worry about the border in Texas or Arizona or anywhere else.“
Since Biden took office in 2021, US border agents have made more than 5m arrests of migrants making irregular crossings – not through a controlled border station – over the US-Mexico border.
Migrants have arrived from around the world. Large numbers have fled economic and political turmoil in Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
Trump has pledged to crack down on illegal immigration and restrict legal immigration if elected next year. His plan includes a promise to restore his 2019 “remain in Mexico” program, which forced non-Mexican asylum-seekers hoping to enter the US at the Mexican border to wait in Mexico for the resolution of their cases.
Biden terminated the program after defeating Trump in 2020, pledging more humane and orderly immigration policies. But he has struggled with record levels of migrants caught crossing the US-Mexico border illegally.
Abbott has emerged as a leading Republican figure on border issues by mounting his own Operation Lone Star border security initiative, a controversial plan to stop migration that has put his state at odds with the Biden administration.
