Kari Lake Says Arizona Inundated With Migrants Due to Greg Abbott

Kari Lake is warning that Arizona risks being overwhelmed by illegal migrants because Texas Governor Greg Abbott's efforts to secure the border in his state are pushing desperate immigrants to head further west.

Lake, a Republican who is hoping to secure an Arizona Senate seat in November, made the remarks in an interview with Newsweek, following the publication of data showing migrant apprehensions in the state have surged in recent months.

Abbott has deployed thousands of Texas National Guard soldiers to the border with Mexico, where they have installed razor wire across key crossing points. On January 22, the Supreme Court ruled that federal agents can remove this wire, triggering an angry response from Abbott, who claimed his state was facing an "invasion" and invoked its "constitutional authority to defend and protect itself."

In November 2022, Lake ran to be governor of Arizona, narrowly losing out to Democratic challenger Katie Hobbs. Lake claimed the election had been rigged against her, though this claim was strongly denied by Hobbs and repeatedly rejected in court.

Had she been elected as governor, Lake, a close Donald Trump ally, suggested she would have immediately employed similar tactics to those used by Abbott, including placing physical barriers across the border and potentially asking other Republican states to send National Guard contingents in support.

"The moment I took my hand off the Bible after taking the oath of office, more than a year ago, we would have started completing the wall, building the wall, stopping people coming over," she said. "There would not be people pouring across our border. Our border would not look like a refugee encampment."

John R. Modlin, who heads the U.S. Border Patrol's Tucson Section, reported 13,800 migrants were apprehended illegally crossing the Arizona-Mexico border in the last week of January, up from 5,900 in the same week of 2023. For the month as a whole, the number of apprehensions was 46,200, compared to 19,300 in January 2023.

According to CBS News, which cited internal federal government figures, Arizona and California now account for 60 percent of all illegal border crossings in the United States, whilst Texas' share has fallen.

Asked by Newsweek whether Abbott's strengthening of border defenses in Texas was increasing illegal immigration into Arizona Lake replied: "Oh without a doubt and this is why when I ran for governor I advocated for governors of the border states to take control and make sure that they are securing the border and we can do that.

"Now I wish Greg Abbott would have moved faster because now we've had three years of egregious abuse of the American people, we've had three years of an invasion and we have 10 or 12 million people here illegally. But better late than never.

"Because Greg Abbott is now working to secure the border in Texas we're seeing an influx of people pouring across our border even more so than we had in previous months. The Tucson sector is being overrun with people from 168 different countries."

The Texas governor has also claimed illegal migrant flows are being rerouted away from his state due to its enhanced border security. He commented: "The cartels have rerouted their routes to cross the border because Texas is the only state that's putting up any resistance.

"Despite the fact that Texas represents more than 60 per cent of the land miles of the border, the overwhelming majority now of people crossing the border are crossing in Arizona and California, two states that are putting up no resistance to illegal immigration."

Lake argued that the Biden administration's border policy amounts to "the largest human trafficking operation the world has ever known" and argued individual states have the "right and duty" to take action in response to what she perceives as its failure on immigration.

In December, Governor Hobbs signed an executive order sending Arizona National Guard soldiers to the Mexican border and hit out at the federal government, led by her fellow Democrats, for "refusing to do its job to secure our border and keep our communities safe."

She commented: "With this Executive Order, I am taking action where the federal government won't... Despite continued requests for assistance, the Biden administration has refused to deliver desperately needed resources to Arizona's border."

Last week, a bipartisan immigration and foreign aid bill backed by President Biden was torpedoed by Republican hardliners, who argued it was insufficiently tough. The proposal would have also provided an additional $60 billion in military aid to Ukraine, boosted U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention capacity from 34,000 to 50,000 and automatically shut down the border to most migrants if there are an average of more than 5,000 crossing attempts per day over seven days.

Lake told Newsweek she welcomed Republican opposition to the proposal, arguing it would effectively codify illegal migration across the U.S.-Mexico border.

Newsweek reached out to U.S. Customs and Border Protection for comment by email.