Val Verde County, Texas, voted unanimously Tuesday to sue President Joe Biden “for failure to protect and defend the border of the United States” against an “invasion” at the southern border. More than 1.5 million illegal immigrants have crossed the US-Mexico border since January, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection statistics, and the Biden administration is reportedly preparing for a record-breaking 400,000 more illegal immigrants in October.
“We’ve talked about immigration reform for as long as I can remember. Both parties have had control of Washington at one point or another over the last 20 years, and we have failed to do anything about it other than create the mess that we have today,” Val Verde County Commissioner Beau Nettleton said in a meeting Tuesday night that was later posted on Twitter.
“It is inexcusable,” he added.
Nettleton said he supports legal immigration because “that’s what built this country,” but condemned the illegal immigration that has plagued the Texas county for years. He blamed the situation on bad policy that has forced border towns to carry the illegal immigrant burden.
“To put these communities — we had 50% of the population of this city was sitting underneath our international bridge. How is a town of this size, with our tax base, supposed to deal with that problem when it wasn’t our problem to start with? It is a complete failure of everything that’s going on in Washington for not just the last couple of years but for many, many years,” Nettleton said.
“They could(n’t) care less about American people,” he continued. “It is completely and utterly inexcusable that we have found ourselves in this mess. But right now…we’re the center and the whole entire world is watching us and it is our chance to stand up and do something, and making a statement and make a point, that enough is enough. This needs to end. The President of the United States and the President of Mexico need to get together and come up with a solution.”
Nettleton said he wasn’t sure if the lawsuit would solve the border crisis, but at the very least it “draws attention to this problem.” The local officials called on neighboring counties to join in the suit.
“They took the same oath of office that I did, which was to uphold the constitution…they need to comply with that oath and do their job and stop this mess,” Nettleton added.
Val Verde County Judge Lewis Owens echoed Nettleton, adding that everything the county is going through feels like “you keep beating your head against a wall and there ain’t nobody listening.”
According to the judge, the lawsuit against Biden was officially “for failure to enforce the laws of the constitution of the United States and failure to abide by his oath of office…and for failure to protect and defend the border of the United States by allowing an invasion at the southern border of the United States. “
