Texas’s Republican Gov. Greg Abbott told Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo that President Joe Biden had “abandoned” the border, noting that Mexican cartels recently shot at Texas National Guardsmen.
“The cartels on the Mexican side of the border, they’re beginning to open fire on the National Guard that Texas has down on the border to secure the border,” Abbott said, according to the Daily Wire. “This is escalating into a firing war on each side of the border where Texas and our National Guard are having to defend themselves and defend the state of Texas.”
Video captured by Fox’s News’ Bill Melugin shows cartel members firing into Roma Texas, said Melugin, who also said that Texas National Guardsmen “stationed at the border have witnessed many cartel gunfights in the area.”
Statement from Texas DPS. Heavily armed gunmen in tactical gear have become more common in the area, which is being fought over by the Gulf Cartel, and the Northeast Cartel, an offshoot of Los Zetas. @FoxNews pic.twitter.com/mHe81mmAmt
— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) October 15, 2021
Previously, Yahoo News reported that cartels members who were smuggling illegal immigrants across the river would taunt soldiers and law enforcement on the U.S. side of the border.
“What’s been happening actually this past week is we see a group of individuals that are coming across—they’re smuggling people—but what they’re doing is they come across the river into the U.S. and smuggle people, they go back into Mexico, and they get their weapons,” Texas Department of Public Safety spokesman Lt. Christopher Olivarez said during an interview Wednesday, according to Yahoo News.
“These are assault rifles, OK, AK-47s. They’ll stand in the middle of the river, and then they’re brandishing their weapons and taunting the National Guard, who’s across on the U.S. side,” Olivarez said.
BREAKING: Two shots were fired from across the border at Texas National Guard soldiers in Roma, TX yesterday by suspected cartel gunmen. It happened in the same area where cartel gunmen have been seen taunting the soldiers in recent days. Texas Rangers investigating. @FoxNews pic.twitter.com/F3SNI6GiAE
— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) October 15, 2021
Still photos on Twitter shared by Melugin show more than a half-a-dozen men dressed in jeans and flak jackets carrying semi-automatic or fully automatic rifles on the Mexican side of the border.
“The Biden administration has completely abandoned all the people who live on the border, and they’ve abandoned people in the state of Texas,” Abbott told Bartiromo.
” … These are counties and these are people who traditionally have voted Democrat that the Biden administration is ignoring, and he’s putting them in danger,” Abbott added.
