While Abbott attacks Biden for releasing migrants with COVID, the White House asks why Texas rejects funds to test them

WASHINGTON – Governor Greg Abbott accused the Biden government on Thursday of cruelly releasing struggling migrants in Texas, prompting the White House to respond that it is he who puts Texans at risk by blocking federal funds intended to provide them with COVID tests. -19.

The volleys reflect an ongoing rivalry, along with maneuvers to avoid blame and score points on several related fronts: If the pandemic roars back to Texas, it is because of the immigrants that President Joe Biden released or because Abbott ended the mask’s term. of State?

“I’m hot because, it seems, some of the people who cross the border are testing positive for COVID-19,” Abbott said on a conservative talk show at Houston’s KTRH-AM. “We have our own challenges with COVID-19 … just to face the influx of people from across the border and who may be increasing the spread of COVID-19. The Biden government must stop this illegal immigration program that they have opened. “

Hours later, White House press secretary Jen Psaki went out of her way to provoke the governor, based on a Fox News question about the lack of tests at the border, while travelers arriving from abroad must present a report. negative test.

“Governor Abbott referred to what is happening at the border as … an open border policy. This is absolutely incorrect, ”she said. “The border is not open. The vast majority of individuals detained or found at the border continue to be denied entry and are returned. “

When Biden accused Abbott last week of “Neanderthal thinking” by rejecting public health guidelines on masks, the governor replied that the president was “releasing COVID-positive illegal immigrants in our state.”

Abbott and other Republicans have insisted that Biden’s reversal of Trump-era border policies has unleashed a torrent of illegal migration. Democrats say he is trying to divert attention from the catastrophic power outages that have left millions of Texans frozen for days in the past month.

Against that backdrop, Psaki beat Abbott for refusing federal funds that would go to local governments and nonprofits to test migrants.

The Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency “intervened and worked with local mayors and NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] and public health officials in Texas to implement a system to provide COVID-19 tests and, as needed, isolation and quarantine for families released from Border Patrol facilities, ”said Psaki. “Your proposal and agreement would cover 100% of testing, isolation and quarantine expenses. But Governor Abbott decided to reject that. “

The state would have to agree to funding coronavirus testing. Abbott’s argument is that the test is a federal responsibility, like border inspection, although on Saturday he announced that he would send state soldiers and members of the National Guard to the border.

Abbott praised the developments, dubbed Operation Lone Star, during a visit to the Mission on Tuesday, in which he accused Biden of indifference to a growing crisis.

“What Biden has actually implemented is an open border policy,” said the governor on Thursday at WBAP-AM’s Chris Salcedo Show – although what he then described was not an open border, but an escalation of detentions as the influx of migrants increases.

So far, in 2021, more than 108,000 seizures have been made in the Rio Grande Valley sector of the Border Patrol, compared with 90,000 in the past year alone, said Abbott. “And they are going to cross the border even more because of these Biden policies. We are in crisis levels now. We will be at catastrophic levels probably in about another month from now, unless the government stops it. “

Psaki also objected to claims by Abbott and others that Customs and Border Protection officials did not have access to vaccines.

“He suggested that we are not vaccinating CBP officers,” she said. “We like to deal with the facts here. There is no higher priority than the health and safety of our federal workforce. … More than 64,000 DHS frontline employees, including members of the US Border Patrol, received the vaccination. “

Three Texans in Congress wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Thursday, raising the same concern.

Senator John Cornyn, a Republican, joined deputies Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo and Tony Gonzales, R-San Antonio, along with Senator Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat from Arizona.

“Since the start of the pandemic, more than 8,000 CBP employees have tested positive for COVID and 27 have died. A total of 9,686 [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] detainees tested positive for COVID last year, ”they wrote. “It is imperative that DHS take steps quickly to vaccinate all DHS officers and agents.”