White House blames Abbott for chaotic border scenes in confusing defense of president

The Biden administration pointed the finger at Republicans for the chaos captured at the border Thursday by The Post, after dramatic video showed migrants tearing down razor wire and rushing guards at El Paso.

Despite being fully responsible for homeland security, the White House blamed Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and former President Donald Trump for the incident – which left Texas National Guard members injured.

“The razor wire, that’s [Abbott]. The National Guard, that’s him. The Border Patrol agents still did their job. They got in the way, like the governor’s plans got in the way,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during Friday’s briefing.

The spokesperson’s comments were muddled so it was not clear either which law enforcement group actually “got in the way” or whether that statement was meant as praise or criticism. The men shown being overrun by the migrants were Texas National Guardsmen.

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Jean-Pierre added that “I have not spoken” to Biden about the video before rounding on Abbott once again.

“The president has worked with Congress and the Senate … about getting an immigration bill done, making sure that we deal with the border challenges that we’re now seeing. And you have a governor of Texas who has continued to politicize this.

“I do want to say we are grateful for the Border Patrol’s quick work to get the situation under control and apprehend the migrants, so that’s important,” Jean-Pierre added, “but congressional Republicans need to move on this.”

“What they’re doing instead … is listening to the former president, President Trump, telling them not to get involved in moving with this bipartisan agreement because of his own personal politics.”

Trump is said to have been behind the bipartisan border deal tanking earlier this year by advising his allies in the House to vote against it.

Jean-Pierre reiterated the “solution” is for Congress to “move forward” with the Biden-backed, Senate-passed bill, which would have allocated $20 billion for border security.

House leadership has declined to bring the bill up for a vote, arguing it is redundant to the powers Biden already has as well as taking issue with additional funding for Ukraine and Israel. The president himself has insisted that the bill must pass for him to take action against illegal immigration.

“We need more resources, we need more personnel,” Jean-Pierre added, noting that everyone in the video “was apprehended by the Border Patrol agents.”

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Jean-Pierre‘s comments conveniently ignored how border crossings have dropped in areas where Abbott has deployed extra resources.  

Razor wire and barriers erected along parts of the border have also worked to deter migrants entering the US in dangerous areas where they could drown and encouraged them to instead surrender to officers at a port of entry, the governor has said.

Texas has been locked in a legal battle with the federal government over a state law that would allow the arrest of migrants deemed to be crossing the border illegally. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Texas on Tuesday evening, but the law was blocked within hours by the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals.

Abbott has also gone back and forth with the White House over taking border control into the Texas government’s hands at Eagle Pass, a city hit especially hard by a wave of migrants coming across the Rio Grande.

“The mental gymnastics from the Biden Administration are astonishing,” Abbot spokesman Andrew Mahaleris told The Post Friday evening. “Yesterday’s surge in El Paso is the direct result of the unsustainable chaos President Biden has unleashed on the border. Texas will continue to utilize every tool and strategy to deter and repel illegal crossings as President Biden’s dangerous open border policies encourage migrants from over 150 countries to make unsafe and illegal crossings between ports of entry.”