EAGLE PASS, Texas (Border Report) – Greg Abbott and 14 fellow Republican governors are scheduled to come to the border on Sunday to get a briefing on Texas’ border security initiative and address the Biden administration’s border policies.
Their visit will be to the very border park that the State of Texas forbids federal law enforcement from entering, causing tension between the Biden administration and Gov. Abbott’s Operation Lone Star enforcers.
Abbott says he is going to Shelby Park with the following other Republicans:
- Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders
- Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp
- Idaho Gov. Brad Little
- Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb
- Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds
- Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry
- Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves
- Missouri Gov. Mike Parson
- Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte
- Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen
- New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu
- South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem
- Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee
- Utah Gov. Spencer Cox
After getting briefed on security operations, the governors plan to hold a news conference Sunday afternoon “on the unprecedented actions to protect Americans in response to President Joe Biden’s reckless open border policies,” according to a news release.
On Saturday, Eagle Pass police blocked off the road outside Shelby Park with police tape and cones.
The cordoning off of streets around Shelby Park coincided with a Take Our Border Back Convoy rally on Saturday in Quemado, Texas – about 20 miles north of Eagle Pass.
Tami Dugan, 55, flew in from Wichita, Kansas, for Saturday’s rally, which included prayers and singing and was dubbed as a “peaceful event” by organizers.
“I don’t mind immigration, I just wish they would do it the right way,” Dugan told Border Report.
Shelby Park is the same area where a migrant woman and her two young children drowned last month after U.S. Border Patrol agents were not allowed access to the park by the Texas National Guard.
Several members of the Laredo No Border Wall Coalition also came to Eagle Pass this weekend and were holding a press conference at 5 p.m. on Saturday to protest the gubernatorial visits and the border rally activity.
Lauro Martinez, a member of the Laredo No Border Wall Coalition, drove the two and a half hours north from Laredo to be part of the opposition protests. He is a former staffer for the Rio Grande International Study Center, a nonprofit that safeguards the Rio Grande, and says he is worried about how Operation Lone Star forces and the border buoys put in the river under Abbott’s commands are affecting the international waterway.
“I’m more opposed to the destruction of the land that is happening. That’s why RGISC is involved because they’re destroying miles and miles of land,” he told Border Report on Saturday.
Sandra Sanchez can be reached at SSanchez@BorderReport.com.