Democratic Texas gubernatorial candidate Beto O'Rourke has described incumbent Governor Greg Abbott's mission of sending Texas Nationwide Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border as a $2 billion "political stunt."
O'Rourke blasted the operation as a waste of state sources and known as for an finish to the mission throughout an look on MSNBC's The Final Phrase with Lawrence O'Donnell on Monday night time. O'Rourke stated that troops deployed to the border had complained of getting used as "mere window dressing for the governor's reelection marketing campaign" when he met with a few of them a short while earlier.
Abbott’s political stunt with the Texas Guard on the border will price taxpayers $2 BILLION this 12 months.
— Beto O'Rourke (@BetoORourke) January 25, 2022
Let’s ship them house to their households and make investments that cash in faculties, well being care, and the ability grid. pic.twitter.com/kh23NUyO8J
"Finish this mission," O'Rourke stated. "Allow them to come again house and reserve sending them out just for when we've an actual disaster or an emergency. And what's occurring on the border doesn't meet that bar...there are lots of wants right here that these billions of dollars may have gone to satisfy."
"It is a political ploy on the a part of the governor," he added. "However the people who find themselves paying the worth, past these taxpayers, are these members of the Guard. And we have to allow them to come again to their households, again to their jobs, again to their communities. It is the appropriate factor to do."
Abbott launched the initiative, dubbed Operation Lone Star, final March as a response to what he known as an escalating "disaster at our southern border" brought on by President Joe Biden's immigration insurance policies. The mission started with a couple of thousand troops however has steadily grown to incorporate round 10,000 Nationwide Guard members since then.
"Credibility-challenged Beto O'Rourke is once more making an attempt to attain political factors to the detriment of Texans' security," Abbott's Press Secretary Renae Eze stated of O'Rourke's feedback on the mission in a press release to Newsweek. "He ought to inform that to the Texans alongside the border whose homes are damaged into, their property broken, and had weapons pointed at their heads, because of President Biden's open border insurance policies which O'Rourke helps."
"And inform that to the households who've misplaced family members to fentanyl overdoses, and to the harmless ladies and kids who've been trafficked into the nation,' Eze added. "As a substitute of enjoying politics with our border and Texans' security, O'Rourke ought to ask his pal Biden to do the job he swore an oath to do and safe the border."
Criticism of Abbott's plan, which is anticipated to price round $2 billion this 12 months, has grown alongside the variety of troops being despatched to the border. Complaints have included Texas Nationwide Guard members being given delayed or incorrect funds, having their school tuition advantages lower in half and experiencing poor situations on the border.
A few of these deployed to the border for an indeterminate period of time have described the operation as a poorly outlined and executed mission that's solely succeeding in forcing them to be aimlessly stationed on the border, in response to The New York Instances.
"I imagine we must be on the border, however you have to give them a goal," Jason Featherston, who was the Texas Nationwide Guard's high enlisted member earlier than retiring final 12 months, informed the paper. "Lots of people suppose this can be a publicity stunt. Why unexpectedly the large push?"
Some members of the Guard have additionally complained that they had been involuntarily despatched to the border for prolonged deployments with an unusually quick time to organize.
As well as, a number of troop suicides have been linked to the mission. Abbott stated earlier this month at a marketing campaign cease that these criticizing the mission over the suicides had been "simply enjoying politics" and questioned whether or not the suicides all "truly occurred throughout Operation Lone Star."
O'Rourke, a former member of Congress who misplaced an in depth Senate race to Republican Senator Ted Cruz in 2018 and ran for president in 2020, introduced his candidacy for Texas governor final November.
O'Rourke is Abbott's high Democratic challenger however is trailing the governor by a big margin in polls. Nevertheless, no polls of the still-hypothetical matchup have been launched for over a month.
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