Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) said on "Fox & Friends First" Thursday that the state has been left to handle the border crisis without assistance from the federal government.
"We know the numbers of deaths are going up for migrants. We know they're going to go up for Americans. [The Biden administration] is willing to trade that to get more illegals here and they don't seem to care about the number of deaths," he told Todd Piro and Ashley Strohmier.
BORDER PATROL AGENTS ARREST DOZENS OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT CRIMINALS, GANG MEMBERS
The head of U.S. Border Patrol said on Tuesday that agents caught 10 illegal immigrant sex offenders in just three days, in addition to a number of gang members and a murderer -- a snapshot of the crisis that the men and women in green are dealing with on a nearly daily basis.
Ortiz said that in three days, agents across the border had encountered 2,690 migrants -- including 10 large groups. Among them were 10 sex offenders, four gang members and a murderer.
Last week, CBP announced that agents in the Rio Grande Valley sector had stopped 21 gang members, two sex offenders and those with prior convictions for robbery and battery.
One of those nabbed was a Mexican national with a prior conviction for indecency and sexual contact with a child. Another was a Salvadoran 18th Street gang member with a prior conviction for aggravated homicide.
Paxton said the Biden administration is not willing to do anything to protect migrants who are dying on this journey or the Americans being killed as fentanyl continues to be smuggled through the porous border.
"We just had 13 migrants die in the river because of flooding. We had 53 die in San Antonio in a truck. This is something that will continue to happen. They know it and they know the numbers are going up."
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In response to Gov. Abbott's bussing of migrants to liberal cities, Paxton responded to criticism from Democratic mayors by comparing it to what Texas and border communities have dealt with.
"We have 5,000 a day across the border, we've been dealing with this since the Biden administration came into being. This puts tremendous stress on border towns and law enforcement and not just the sheriffs, but also on our state police and other law enforcement. And also city services, county services, and state services are overwhelmed."
Fox News' Adam Shaw contributed to this report