SALT LAKE CITY, UT — Today, Utah Attorney General Sean D. Reyes co-led a letter to the White House, supporting Texas’s border defense. The letter addresses serious concerns about national security from illegal and unrelenting border crossings. A total of 27 states have signed on to the letter.
Attorney General Reyes said: “It is disgraceful that our federal government refuses to defend America’s border while actively obstructing reasonable state efforts to combat the surging crime, resource depletion, threats to national security and humanitarian crises caused by such disastrous policies. I am proud to stand with Texas and help lead this coalition of states as we assert our legal responsibility to protect our families and communities. Because of this administration’s derelict policies, every state has become a border state. Texas’ fight is our fight. If the White House will not defend our national border, laws, and citizens, then states have the authority under the U.S. Constitution to defend themselves.”
Since President Biden took office, more than six million undocumented individuals have crossed the southern border—roughly the population of Iowa and Utah combined. By turning a blind eye to the invasion at our southern border, which includes record illegal immigration, a flood of deadly drugs, an influx of human trafficking, and increased encounters with members of the terror watchlist—the White House has elevated an already tense and dangerous situation into an absolute crisis. In just one month, Border Patrol agents acting on federal government orders cut Texas’s border defense wires more than 20 times. In one case, they even used a forklift to raise the wire and usher in more than 300 undocumented immigrants.
Because the federal government has failed to do its job and secure the border, States like Texas have stepped up to protect their citizens. A federal district court found that Texas’s border defense wires reduced illegal border crossings by more than two-thirds. Those barriers protect not just Texans from millions of illegal border crossings, but the rest of the nation.
The States demand that the federal government either enforce the laws that secure the southern border or allow States like Texas to stop the invasion themselves.
Attorney General Reyes co-led the letter with Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird. Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Wyoming, and the Arizona State Legislature also signed the letter.
