WASHINGTON — With Title 42 about to expire, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott deployed another 450 National Guard troops to the border Monday, a move the White House denounced as a stunt that will only worsen a looming crisis.

“President Biden is laying down a welcome mat to people across the entire world, saying that the United States border is wide open,” Abbott said, announcing a new Texas Tactical Border Force.

He accused President Joe Biden of “collaboration” with smuggling cartels and said Texas is being “undermined” and “overrun by our own federal government.”

The White House took a dim view of the deployment, which came without a heads-up, and of the governor’s rhetoric that included describing the situation as a “Biden-made crisis.”

“There’s a way to handle those types of announcements and the governor knows this,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said. “That’s by coordinating with federal authorities, something that he refuses to do.”

Instead, she said, Abbott’s “first call” on border policies is usually to Fox News.

When Texas began sending migrants out of state, the first buses dropped off passengers near the U.S. Capitol. The conservative news network was alerted. The Biden administration was not.

Abbott also gave Fox News an interview on the tarmac Monday at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, where he inspected guard members in tactical gear, carrying rifles before heading for El Paso and the Rio Grande Valley.

Last week, Biden ordered an additional 1,500 troops to the Southern border to free up border agents ahead of a surge expected to begin after Thursday, when Title 42 expires.

Then-President Donald Trump invoked that emergency public health power early in the COVID-19 pandemic to allow for quick expulsion of migrants. Since March 2020, it has been used more than 2.7 million times.

Backlogs are expected to grow quickly once it’s lifted.

Homeland security officials have said border encounters could hit 10,000 a day — double the number in March.

Abbott cited a 13,000-a-day estimate. And he extrapolated to say that over the next year, the United States could have 4.7 million new immigrants who enter illegally — more than Chicago’s population and about the same as Harris County’s.

Those figures are encounters, though. Most of those migrants are detained and expelled. Many try repeatedly. So the figures are bigger than the number of individuals trying to enter illegally.

The new Texas unit is tasked with intercepting, repelling and turning back migrants at border “hot spots,” Abbott said over the din of military aircraft.

He boasted that no state has ever done more to defend its international border, touting Operation Lone Star, a multibillion-dollar effort using the National Guard and state public safety officers.

“This is just about political theater for him. This is not really dealing with this issue. It’s about creating more chaos. It’s about creating more confusion at the border,” Jean-Pierre said.

The Biden administration has long argued that Title 42 is no substitute for immigration policy. Texas sued in April 2022 when the federal government tried to lift the rule.

The World Health Organization declared the pandemic ended last week. Biden signed a bill ending the U.S. emergency on April 10.

On Monday, Jean-Pierre blasted congressional Republicans for failing to fill the void that everyone saw coming.

“We’re using the tools that we have in front of us to deal with this issue. Republican officials want to do something else,” she said. “They want to campaign on this issue. They want to do political stunts. That’s what we’re seeing from the governor of Texas.”

Texas has used a trespassing misdemeanor to arrest unauthorized immigrants.

Abbott also resumed inspections of commercial trucks last Tuesday, though the dragnet had already loosened by Monday after causing delays up to 26 hours into Brownsville. Abbott employed the tactic in April 2022 and again last summer, bringing attention to his complaints about federal failures at the border while also sparking complaints about lost trade.

Tensions are running high. Eight people were killed at a bus stop outside a migrant shelter in Brownsville after a driver plowed into them.

The driver has been charged with manslaughter. Police haven’t cited a motive so far but migrant advocates say antagonism is boiling and they suspect it was a hate crime.

Dallas Morning News staff writer Aarón Torres contributed to this story from Austin.

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