OVER 19,000 kids crossed the border in March, the highest number in history, with hundreds of them facing sexual assault according to Gov Greg Abbott.
The tidal wave of children comes after President Joe Biden reversed many of Donald Trump's hardline immigration tactics.
One of the reasons behind the increase was the Biden administration’s decision to exempt unaccompanied children from pandemic-related powers to immediately expel most people from the country without giving them an opportunity to seek asylum.
Children are instead released to “sponsors” in the U.S., usually parents or close relatives, while being allowed to pursue their cases in heavily backlogged immigration courts.
Some of the children travelling alone were as young as three.
The Border Patrol encountered 18,663 unaccompanied children in March, well above previous highs of 11,475 in May 2019 and 10,620 in June 2014.
The agency started publishing the numbers in 2009. Before then, adults made up the vast majority of those crossing the border.
For many, a hurricane that hit Central America in November added urgency to endemic poverty and violence that have led people to flee for decades. Changes in U.S. policy under Biden also have guided their decisions, whether real or rumored.
Migrant children are reportedly being sexually abused and starved at a San Antonio facility that houses the kids.
"These problems are a byproduct of President Biden's open border policies and the lack of planning for the fallout for those disastrous policies," Abbott said.
“We see no basis for Governor Abbott’s call to shut down the San Antonio Freeman Coliseum as an intake site, however his claims will be looked into and investigated by the Department of Health and Human Services.”
The complaints allegedly stem from tips the state's governor received about the Freeman Coliseum facility.
Abbott refused to say where the tips came from, but said the source was "credible".
The governor said sexual assault, lack of staff, starving children and the inability to separate Covid-positive kids from others are the biggest complaints the Texas government is getting.
"In short, this facility is a health and safety nightmare," Abbott said.
"The Biden administration is now presiding over the abuse of children."
After the conference, the Texas governor took to Twitter to demand an investigation into the sexual abuse allegations.
"I'm asking [the Texas Department of Public Safety] and TX Rangers to investigate allegations of child abuse & neglect inside the Freeman Coliseum migrant child facility," he wrote.
"Biden's open border policy caused this crisis. I'm calling on the administration to shut down the facility immediately."
Biden was also slammed by Sheriff Thomas M. Hodgson, of Bristol County, Massachusetts, who accused of him of exposing the country to national security threats and rampant sex trafficking.
Hodgson made the comments during an appearance on Fox & Friends on Thursday, after he and 275 other sheriffs across 39 states penned a letter to Biden urging him to secure the border.
"Sheriffs across this country are mobilizing," Hodgson told the network. "We have really made this point several times and President Biden knows it – that open borders don't work."
"They are exposing our citizens to more transnational gangs, the violence in our communities, more drugs pouring into our communities, sex and human trafficking out of control, and national security threats."
Hodgson, who spearheaded the written plea to Biden, said he wants to let the president know that it's "not okay to put his politics before the safety and security of the people of this nation."
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