Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced a new billboard campaign on Thursday to warn potential illegal immigrants about the “horrific” reality of human trafficking, violence and danger facing them if they attempt to illegally enter the U.S.
Abbott said the state is placing dozens of billboards with warnings in several languages throughout Mexico and Central America.
“We’re here to expose the truth to immigrants who are thinking about coming here, the truth about the traffickers who assault so many of the women and children along the way,” the governor said. “The message is: Do not risk a dangerous trip just to be arrested and deported.”
Abbott, who recently made another trip to the border with the incoming border czar, Tom Homan, also emphasized that the new Trump administration will “prioritize for deportation illegal immigrants who have been arrested.”
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Billboards will be written in Spanish, Russian, Chinese and Arabic, and will be placed along migrant travel routes.
The governor made his announcement at a ranch on the southern border. He was standing by a burned “rape tree,” where property owners have said migrant women were routinely raped. Abbott said the billboards “tell the horror stories of human trafficking” and “inform potential illegal immigrants about the reality of what will happen to them if they try to enter Texas illegally.”
One billboard written in Spanish depicts a little girl and simply asks: “How much did you pay to have your daughter raped?”
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Another depicts a pregnant woman and says: “Your wife and daughter will pay for their trip with their bodies.”
Abbott criticized governments and private groups who “make it sound like it may be harmless going into the state of Texas,” and said the state is trying to “provide reality facts for immigrants thinking about coming here to save their lives, to save them from sexual assault, save them from being arrested and let them know there are consequences if they take any further steps to come to the state of Texas.”
“This is tough medicine, but we want no more rape trees in Texas,” said Abbott. “Do not make the dangerous trek to Texas.”
The governor went on to lament the historic surge in illegal immigration under the Biden administration, saying: “It’s a deadly situation, a horrific situation, a horror that we fully expect to end beginning in about a month when President Trump takes office and shuts down the border and restores safety and normalcy to the immigration process.”
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