Texas Gov. Greg Abbott greeted President Joe Biden at the base of Air Pressure One in El Paso on Sunday and presented him with a scathing letter condemning the president’s solution to immigration and border protection.

“Your check out to our southern border with Mexico these days is $20 billion too minimal and two a long time also late,” Abbott, a Republican about to begin his 3rd expression, reported in the one-web page letter to the Democratic president. “Furthermore, your visit avoids the web sites in which mass illegal immigration occurs and sidesteps the 1000’s of offended Texas home owners whose lives have been wrecked by your border guidelines.”

The temporary but what appeared to be a cordial exchange involving Biden and Abbott was picked up by tv news cameras but their remarks were not. Biden appeared to study the letter, before folding it and featuring the governor a closing handshake ahead of moving on to greet other people who turned out to meet up with him all through his quick keep in El Paso.

Abbott has accomplished minimal to mask his antipathy toward Biden’s border policies that rolled back quite a few of the hardline immigration guidelines of then-President Donald Trump. Talking with reporters right after his take a look at with the president, the governor all over again amplified his complaints.

“The president who brought on the chaos at the border essential to be below,” Abbott in a five-moment problem-and-answer session. “He requires to step up and consider swift motion, like reimbursing the state of Texas for the dollars that we’ve invested (on state border security initiatives).”

Questioned what the president told him, Abbott replied, “He claimed he wanted to do the job with us.”

The airport assembly, which experienced not been publicly declared, came after a weekend in which Abbott had criticized Biden in a string of social media posts and in physical appearance on Fox Information.

“This is just a photograph op and a recreation of faux,” Abbott informed the cable network before on Sunday.

Abbott and other Texas Republican leaders have identified as on Biden to each pay a visit to the nation’s southern border and to consider aggressive motion to curb the two-calendar year surge in unlawful crossings.

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Biden’s vacation to the border, his first given that having office environment two years ago, was introduced very last 7 days soon after El Paso dominated nationwide information headlines as countless numbers of migrants amassed at the border, lots of of whom crossed into the metropolis in anticipation of the lifting of the plan knowns as Title 42. That plan, imposed through the Trump years ostensibly as a COVID-containment technique, permits immigration authorities to speedily expel migrants and, in some conditions, suspend the appropriate to find asylum below U.S. regulation and intercontinental treaty.

More:President Biden lands at El Paso Global Airport for border take a look at: reside updates

The Supreme Court docket has ruled that the plan will have to keep on being pending action by the court later this yr.

Abbott, in his remarks to reporters in El Paso, observed that Texas is a bash to the nevertheless-pending lawsuit.

“He is demanded as president by the laws to sustain Title 42 in area,” Abbott stated.

The governor said he also desires the federal government to repay Texas for the expense of Abbott’s $4 billion border system he phone calls Procedure Lone Star, which has deployed countless numbers of National Guard troopers and Division of Public Basic safety troopers to the border. Abbott stated he will ask the Legislature this calendar year for an more $4 billion.

In his letter to Biden, Abbott outlined a series of measures he desires the administration to acquire to stem both of those unlawful immigration and the illicit importation of medication. He spelled out the suggested actions he desires Biden to consider in bullet points:

• You should comply with the numerous statutes mandating that many categories of (migrants) “shall” be detained, and conclusion the apply of unlawfully paroling migrants en masse.

• You should stop sandbagging the implementation of the Remain-in-Mexico plan and Title 42 expulsions, and entirely implement those people measures as the federal courts have ordered you to do.

• You have to aggressively prosecute unlawful entry concerning ports of entry, and allow for ICE to eliminate unlawful immigrants in accordance with current federal rules.

• You have to quickly resume construction of the border wall in the condition of Texas, using the billions of dollars Congress has appropriated for that objective.

• You should designate the Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist corporations.

John C. Moritz covers Texas governing administration and politics for the United states of america These days Network in Austin. Contact him at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @JohnnieMo.

This report initially appeared on El Paso Situations: Here’s what was on letter Greg Abbott hand-shipped to Joe Biden