Utah Republican Gov. Spencer Cox again blamed the President Joe Biden administration for not effectively addressing immigration at the U.S. southern border. His comments come as Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives have torpedoed legislation aimed at addressing border security — seemingly at the request of former President Donald Trump.
“If we don’t see a change from President Biden and his administration — I think he’s making a huge mistake — it’s gonna cost him the election,” Cox told reporters at his monthly news conference on Thursday.
Seeking reelection, Trump has encouraged congressional Republicans to avoid agreeing to border security efforts to allegedly use the issue to attack Biden. Last month, Trump told supporters at a campaign event to blame him for sinking a deal on the border in Congress.
Cox said Thursday that the federal government has “absolutely dropped the ball on this.”
After visiting Eagle Pass, Texas in early February, Cox announced that Utah would send five Utah National Guard troops and five Utah Highway Patrol officers to Texas. According to the governor, Utah has sent 230 troops to the border since 2018.
“If the Biden administration is not going to fill their constitutional duty, and if Congress is not going to fulfill their duty, then unfortunately, the states are going to have to step up,” Cox said Thursday.
Utah has been working closely with the Lone Star State, Cox said, and has been told Texas isn’t looking for large numbers of troops at the moment.
“If there is a request for more,” he added, “we will have those conversations.”
Cox said last year’s 3.2 million interactions with undocumented immigrants is not sustainable. According to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection data from fiscal 2023, CBP had 3.2 million “encounters” nationwide and 2.4 “encounters” at the “southwest land border.”
“It is overwhelming all of our systems, it is completely unsustainable,” Cox said Thursday. “I don’t care how compassionate you are.”
When asked if he was concerned about the crisis of immigration in Utah, Cox said he was “deeply concerned” and “we don’t have resources.”
Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall has disputed Cox’s claims that illegal immigration is linked to a rise in drug use.
“Our data doesn’t show any increase related to immigration changes at the border,” Mendenhall said at a Feb. 5 news conference.
While Cox agreed with Salt Lake City officials in that large amounts of drugs are being trafficked by U.S. citizens, he disagreed on policy.
“Where I think she’s wrong is that the cartels are deeply involved in both the drug smuggling and smuggling illegal immigrants to the border and across the border,” he said. “So to say that there is no nexus between what’s happening at the border and what’s happening in Utah is just patently false.”
Cox said he wants Congress to fix asylum laws, which “everybody agrees are broken.”
“We’ve made it so impossible for people to do it the right way that people feel they have no choice but to do it the wrong way,” he said.
Last February, Cox wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post with Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb, calling for the federal government to let states sponsor immigrants.
“Immigration sponsorship would give states a dynamic means to attract new residents, both from a pool of new applicants from abroad and from the ranks of current asylum seekers,” the governors’ wrote then.
