This just keeps getting uglier for Greg Abbott
Texas Governor Greg Abbott has issued a press release announcing the expansion of Operation Lone Star to include efforts to crack down on human trafficking related to illegal border crossings. It states, “As part of the expansion, the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) troopers and agents, as well as the Texas Rangers, will conduct interviews with unaccompanied minors who crossed the border to identify victims of human trafficking and gain actionable intelligence that will aid in the arrest of traffickers.” The problem is that they have no access to said minors being held in federal facilities, and this is an obvious attempt to get it in order to find or create dirt to report on President Biden’s administration.
I recently wrote about Abbott tweeting that Biden was responsible for human trafficking of young children. He states again in the press release that “President Biden’s reckless open border policies have created a humanitarian crisis that is enriching the cartels, smugglers and human traffickers who pray on and abuse unaccompanied minors.” He further states. “Americans deserve to know what the Biden Administration is doing to investigate … and protect victims of human trafficking.”
If Abbott already knows this, rather than demanding access to these minors, maybe he should provide, or President Biden’s administration should demand, that he turn over all such intelligence. After all, Gov. Abbott and the State of Texas do not have a good track record when it comes to human trafficking victims in Texas.
As the Texas Tribune reported on March 6,2020, Texas officials were still failing child victims of sex trafficking from 2017, including children in the Texas foster care program. Laws passed to help were not even being funded. A federal judge had recently fined the state for dragging its heels. In fact, Abbott actually vetoed a bill decriminalizing prostitution for children, as well as House Bill 3078, seeking to establish a separate clemency panel to review cases of jailed abuse survivors. Nearly ten years after a lawsuit was filed against the State of Texas for violating the civil rights of children in foster care, advocates said not much had changed. Perhaps Abbott, same as most of the GOP and conservative media, is projecting his own problems in this regard onto President Biden and his administration?
