Gov. Abbott says President Biden has "completely abandoned" his responsibility to protect the U.S.

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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott didn't mince words when speaking out against the Biden administration's border policies.

Abbott, joined by 13 Republican governors, held a press conference at Eagle Pass on Sunday and criticized Biden's failure to reduce illegal immigration, which reached a record monthly high in December.

“President Biden has abandoned his constitutional duty to protect Americans by refusing to secure our southern border,” Abbott said. “During his presidency, Joe Biden has smashed records for illegal immigration and allowed total chaos to be unleashed along our southern border."

Abbott claimed Mr. Biden had "completely abdicated and abandoned his responsibility to enforce the laws of the United States."

"Joe Biden, it is your turn now — your obligation, your duty, to follow the laws Congress passed and secure the border, just as Texas has," Abbott said, speaking alongside the governors of Tennessee, Montana, Arkansas and Georgia among others.

Abbott has been feuding with Biden for months and reiterated that the president's "open door" border policies are causing Texas to suffer.

“As opposed to detaining illegal immigrants, Biden has let them all loose, with no ability to accurately determine their whereabouts,” Abbott said during a press conference Sunday at the park. “We’ve seen the catastrophic consequences of Joe Biden’s open border policy.”

U.S. Border Patrol agents took into custody more than 225,000 migrants who crossed the southern border — in between official crossings — during the first 27 days of December, according to the preliminary Department of Homeland Security statistics. The figure does not include legal entries at ports of entry, where the Biden administration has been processing roughly 50,000 migrants each month, mostly under a process powered by a smartphone app.

Given the surge in illegal immigration, Abbott claims that Texas border patrol will do everything short of shooting immigrants to protect the state's border.

We are using every tool that can be used from building a border wall, to building these border barriers, to passing this law that I signed that led to another lawsuit by the Biden administration where I signed a law making it illegal for somebody to enter Texas from another country,” Abbott said on a podcast with former National Rifle Association spokesperson Dana Loesch last week.

The only thing that we’re not doing is shooting people who come across the border because, of course, the Biden administration would charge us with murder,” Abbott later added.

Abbott asserts that there has been a noticeable decline in unauthorized border crossings since Texas installed more than 100 miles of razor wire barriers.

"They have ensured that this entire park that we are in right now will not be an area that can be used to pass anymore," he said.

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders also called out the president during the news conference.

"Because of his failures, Governor Abbott is having to step up, governors from across the country are having to step up and do the job of the federal government because they simply won't," Sanders said.

President Biden spoke to his counterpart in Mexico, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, on Saturday afternoon. The two "discussed challenges at our shared border and committed to continuing their productive partnership," according to a readout of their phone call.

It's unclear if the conversation between the two leaders will lead to change, but it is at least a starting point to resolve what Abbott describes as an "invasion."