Texas, federal government continue immigration standoff

a war zone that is how Texas governor Greg Abbott is describing the southern border he claims the federal government has failed to enforce immigration law on 60 Minutes the governor defended his controversial border policies to stop the quote invasion of migrants we're not imposing a Texas border policy Texas very simply is enforcing the laws that are the policy of the United States Congress what gives you the authority to tell the US border patrol what to do for one as governor of the set of te

ch I have the authority to control Ingress and egress uh to any land in the state of Texas uh for another this land we're on right now was used by the federal government to further illegal activity and I wanted to put a stop to it camil Montoya gas joins us now for more uh so Camila where does the fight between Texas and the federal government stand this morning good morning Vlad the legal and political standoff between the Texas state government and the Biden Administration here here at the US

Mexico border has continued in early January the Texas National Guard took control of this public park behind me Vlad and it has since fortified it with razor wire and other fencing to deter migrants from crossing the real grand and entering the US illegally Federal border patrol agents flat are still not allowed inside here to process migrants because and you heard the governor say this they believe Texas does that their actions here the federal government's actions here further illeg immigrati

on the Biden Administration has said that Texas's actions are unconstitutional and that they are impeding border patrol Agents from doing their jobs but as you heard Governor Abbott say on 60 Minutes he believes that this is an invasion I do have to stress of course that there's no military offensive here Vlad migrant migrants are not coming here with weapons and Border towns like Eagle Pass are not under attack it is true that there have been record levels of illegal Crossings here but I did wa

nt to clarify that point so on face the nation yesterday Homeland Security secretary Alejandro mayorcas discussed the murder of a Georgia nursing student who was allegedly killed by an undocumented migrant let's listen to what he had to say if a city is aware of an individual who poses a threat to Public Safety then we would request that they provide us with that information so that we can ensure that that individual is detained if the facts so warrant and it sounds like they were not coordinati

ng well um different cities have different levels of cooperation we were not notified in this instance so what do you make of my oris's comments and I imagine this plays right into many Republicans arguments about the need for stronger uh immigration laws at border well andar former president Donald Trump and other Republicans are certainly trying to tie the issue of crime with the migrant crisis here they believe these are two winning political issues for them they are citing obviously the trag

ic murder of that Georgia nursing student in early uh February but it is important to underscore that anytime you have a large group of people coming across the US Mexico border some of them are fortunately are going to commit crimes the Biden Administration has released more than 3 million migrants from the US Mexico border over the past three years and while they are supposed to be screened for security concerns while in Border Patrol custody once they're out of federal custody it is very hard

for the federal government to control the movement of such a large group of people so that is true we also have to underscore that the available data on this issue does not indicate that migrants are committing crimes at a higher rate at higher level than native born Americans but obviously that does not diminish the very tragic circumstances that we have seen in New York and Georgia with some migrants who are here illegally committing very serious crimes all right Camilo thank you very much