Eagle Pass, Texas (July 24, 2023) – A new Center for Immigration Studies video report and podcast highlight Texas Governor Abbott’s “Operation Hold the Line”, which has state police and National Guard block immigrants at the Rio Grande River’s edge, and President Biden’s undermining of the state’s efforts to enforce the laws.

Todd Bensman, the Center for Immigration Studies’ senior national security fellow, captures the border war, showing many of the initiatives undertaken by the state in and around Eagle Pass, Texas, a hot spot for illegal immigrant crossings. Bensman speaks with several illegal immigrants who successfully entered the country and with others who were discouraged and returned to Mexico. They told Bensman of their plans to go around the Texas border blockade and to search for U.S. Border Patrol officers, who the migrants feel are certain to admit them into the U.S.

Bensman explains, “None of these immigrants are really giving up, because they all know full well there’s an antidote, a solution, to this Texas halt-and-block operation – it is President Joe Biden’s Border Patrol. The immigrants know that if they can bust the Texas blockade and link up with Biden’s Border Patrol agents, they will be escorted in right past Texas’s fortifications.”