Texas Gov. Greg Abbott responded to New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ previous comments that the Republican is “morally bankrupt” and using illegal immigrants as “political pawns” for bussing migrants from the border state to the Big Apple.
“He needs to step up and do his job as mayor and protect the people in his community as opposed to gimmicks about what’s going on on the border,” Abbott said on “Fox News Sunday.”
The Texas governor is fresh off of a visit to New York City last week, where he headlined the New York Republican Party’s annual gala. Ahead of the visit, Adams invited Abbott to stay at a migrant shelter and learn how the city is handling the immigration crisis.
“I’m going to offer him a stay in one of the HERRCs so he can see what he has created and understand how we are treating people with the dignity and respect that he should have shown as well,” Adams said at a press conference when asked about Abbott’s trip to the city. HERRCs are relief centers in the city where migrants are housed.
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“I’m not quite sure why he’s here and what he’s doing while here, but he’s going to see how you can manage the crisis with the coordination of not one child of families sleeping on the streets of the city of New York,” Adams continued. “When we coordinate together, we should not displace problems to local municipalities. That is not what executives do. It is unfortunate that he made the decision to do that.”
Roughly 180,000 migrants have arrived in New York City since 2022, after Abbott began bussing migrants in his state to liberal-leaning cities with sanctuary city laws on the books. The move has spurred Adams to previously claim Abbott is “morally bankrupt,” including in May of last year, and he has also said the Republican governor is using “migrants as political pawns.”
Abbott reiterated his long-standing argument during his remarks at the Republican gala on Thursday that President Biden is the one to blame for the influx of illegal immigrants coming into the nation, and that Adams should direct his ire at the president.
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“We made clear by contacting [Adams’] office, and said, ‘We’re not sending them to New York. That’s Joe Biden sending them to New York,'” Abbott said at the gala. “But the criticism kept coming, kept coming, kept coming, despite our denial. So after a while I figured, ‘Gosh, If I’m going to get the criticism, I want to get the credit.’ And thus began the bussing of illegal immigrants to the sanctuary city of New York City.”
Fox News’ Martha Maccallum weighed in Sunday that “because of comments like that,” Adams has called Abbott “morally bankrupt and that you’re using these individuals as political pawns,” and asked the Republican governor to respond.
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“The person who is actually using illegal immigrants as political pawns is Joe Biden. Joe Biden has created this open border policy that has allowed illegal immigrants into our country to appeal to and to appease the far-leftist in the Democrat party… while at the same time destroying the country that he’s in charge of. He is the commander in chief in charge of national security for our country. Our country is being invaded in ways that put our country at risk because of the political games that Joe Biden has played,” he said.
Abbott said Adams is “aiding and abetting” Biden’s border policies with the city’s sanctuary status, while highlighting a handful of crime incidents in the city in recent weeks.
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“He needs to stop talking boldly about illegal immigration and the migrants that Texas is sending there. And he needs to step up and do his own job, because look at the dangers in New York City under his watch. You have a police officer who was killed. You have the train system in New York, which is treacherous for travelers. You got police officers attacked in Times Square by illegal immigrants,” he said, before calling on the mayor to stop promoting political “gimmicks.”
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Abbott championed that illegal immigration “has gone down 72%” in Texas due to the state’s “resistance” to the Biden administration’s border policies, while other states sitting across from Mexico have seen illegal immigration continue to tick up. The state is in the middle of a legal battle to allow state police to arrest migrants suspected of entering the U.S. illegally.
A federal appeals court heard opening arguments last week regarding whether a lower court correctly blocked the law, known as SB4, from staying in effect.
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“We feel pretty good about this SB4, which is a law that authorizes Texas to make arrests. I feel good about us winning for this very simple reason: What Texas is doing is not in conflict with the laws of the United States of America. They are consistent and uphold the laws of the United States of America. There are laws on the books, passed by Congress, that require the president and the country to deny illegal entry, to detain anybody who comes into the country illegally and to build border barriers. While Joe Biden has abandoned that responsibility, Texas has embraced that duty,” he said.
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