Texas Gov. Greg Abbott blasts Harris-Walz immigration policy. We check his claims

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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is sounding alarms over the immigration and border security policies of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz after he was tapped as Democratic nominee Kamala Harris’ vice presidential pick.

Vice President Harris, who on Monday officially secured the Democratic presidential nomination after President Joe Biden’s exit from the race, announced Walz as her running mate on Tuesday. Soon after, Abbott, a Republican who has endorsed former President Donald Trump for president, warned that a “Harris-Walz ticket would be the most radical and dangerous administration in modern history.”

A statement from Abbott included criticisms of a Harris-Walz ticket that spanned multiple policy areas, including border security and immigration.

“Tim Walz will be a rubberstamp for Kamala Harris’ deadly open border policies, refusing to admit there is a border crisis, opposing border wall funding, and supporting sanctuary cities,” Abbott said.

In a separate post on X, Abbott said Harris “supports free health care to illegal immigrants,” and Walz “signed laws giving state services to them.”

“Both provide magnets for more illegal immigration,” said Abbott.

So what’s Walz’s record on the border and immigration?

Health care for people living in the U.S. illegally

PolitiFact found a similar statement from Trump that Harris “endorsed free taxpayer-funded government health care for all illegal aliens” mostly false.

Abbott’s post on X did not outline specific “state services” offered to people living in the country illegally and a spokesperson did not immediately return an email seeking comment. But, Walz has signed a law extending a health insurance program for low income Minnesotans, MinnesotaCare, to those with undocumented status, according to MPR News.

A spokesperson for Walz’s office did not immediately return requests for comment.

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A border ‘crisis’?

To back up his claim that Walz will not admit there’s a “border crisis,” Abbott shared a clip of an interview Walz gave on “Meet the Press.” In it, Walz is asked if he thinks what is happening on the border is a crisis.

In the clip, he doesn’t directly call the situation at the border a ‘crisis.”

“Well, I think it could be fixed,” Walz said. “I think crisis is, you know, we certainly have these — I don’t want people living outside Minnesota right now. I think there’s the humanity piece of this, and then there’s the right that every sovereign nation has a right to control its borders, as we should. More could be done, but they’re doing nothing. Congress is doing nothing. The president is asking for more aid for border patrol. Not getting it.”

Pressed if he thinks the border is secure, Walz said, “I think the border with the folks who do the work down there are doing a great job. Could we do better. Absolutely.”

In an interview on “The Ezra Klein Show” published Aug. 2 Walz was more explicit when the subject of immigration came up. Democrats dismiss the issue, he said.

“When they’re asked is it a crisis, you need to answer, ‘Yes, it’s a crisis,’ and then deal with it,” Walz said.

Walz expressed support fora compromise border security bill that was previously offered by Arizona Sen. Krysten Sinema, a Democrat, and Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford, a Republican.

Also discussed was Texas’ busing of migrants. Abbott has sent thousands of migrants to sanctuaries cities across the country as part of a program that transports migrants who enter Texas illegally out of the state.

“I don’t disagree that Gov. Abbott is pointing out some of these things, but he treats it in the most cruel, inhumane way,” Walz said in the Ezra Klein interview. Soon adding, “This is where we should reach out and say, ‘The governor’s not wrong. They need help.’

“Texas shouldn’t by itself absorb or pay for this problem,” he said. “We should all collectively figure out how to do it, and that was Lankford-Sinema, and Donald Trump didn’t want it.”

Walz later added that, not acknowledging that immigration is a problem is bad politically for Democrats.

“Just acknowledge it is,” Walz said. “You’re not denigrating anyone, and you’re not helping them — being the immigrants — by saying it’s not a problem. Because they know better than anybody it’s a problem. Because they’re stuck at a border community with nowhere to go.”

Does Walz support building a border wall?

Abbott pointed to a March 2018 post on X, called Twitter at the time, to support his assertion that Walz opposes border wall funding.

Walz, responding to a Washington Post report that Trump was privately pushing the U.S. military to fund a border wall, said, “I thought President Trump’s military parade idea was the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. I was wrong. Taking money we could use to give our warriors better pay in order to build his ridiculous wall is way stupider.”

Walz favors securing the border through other means, according to a recent interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper. In the interview, Walz quipped that when Trump talks about a border wall, “I always say, let me know how high it is. If it’s 25 feet, then I’ll invest in the 30 foot ladder factory.”

“That’s not how you stop this,” he said. “You stop this using electronics. You stop it using more border control agents, and you stop it by having a legal system that allows for that tradition of allowing folks to come here — just like my relatives did — to come here, be able to work and establish the American dream. He’s not interested in that. He wants to demonize.”

In his interview on “The Ezra Klein Show,” he said of building a border wall: “That’s just so visceral that that’s going to keep people out.”

Does Walz support sanctuary cities?

Sanctuary policies generally refer to those that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. This can be done by not reporting immigration status or limiting immigration detainers.

In a 2018 interview with a Minneapolis TV station that was linked in Abbott’s Tuesday statement, Walz said he supports Minnesota being a sanctuary state if “the definition of that is that the federal government enforces immigration law, and local law enforcement enforces local law.”

Should cities be allowed to be sanctuary cities?

“Yes, local control,” he said.