I can do whatever I want, and nobody can stop me, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) told Fox News Host Sean Hannity on Monday evening.
Abbott told the host that he would restart his policy of blocking commercial traffic at the border if Mexico allowed “illegal immigration to continue to flow into the state of Texas.”
The Texas governor ended his policy of adding redundant, state-level “safety inspections” — which trucks entering from Mexico had to clear after federal border checks — last week, boldly declaring victory after several Mexican state governors announced that they had struck a deal with him to do what they were already doing: patrol their side of the border.
The policy wreaked havoc in Mexico and the U.S., leading to massive delays at the border and causing huge amounts of imported fruit to rot before it could make it to supermarkets across the country.
Abbott admitted to Hannity on Monday that the havoc was the point, as part of a broader pressure campaign he was running.
“What [Mexican President Andrés Manuel] López-Obrador needs to understand is that if Mexico, and the states of Mexico, if they continue to allow illegal immigration to continue to flow into the state of Texas, I have the capability at any time to turn those inspections back on,” Abbott said.
He added that the inspections will “backlog those trucks that are trying to come across the border. That will cause havoc in Mexico.”
It won’t be Abbott, he insisted, that bears the political cost: it will be “those local governors as well as López Obrador.”
Abbott left the material and financial cost unspoken, which includes a week of delayed and undelivered perishable items shipped from Mexico.
