Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced this week that he has created a new position in his administration to battle President Joe Biden’s continued illegal immigration crisis on the U.S. southern border.

The announcement comes after U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) had 251,487 encounters with illegal aliens last month, the highest number ever recorded in U.S. history.

Last month’s numbers, combined with the first two months of fiscal year 2023 — October and November — put the U.S. on track to have more than 2.87 million illegal alien encounters on the U.S. southern border this year.

December’s numbers mean that the Biden administration has now experienced ten straight months of 200,000+ illegal alien encounters per month on the southern border.

“For nearly two years, the State of Texas has taken unprecedented, historic action under Operation Lone Star in response to the Biden Administration’s refusal to secure the border,” said Abbott. “To continue doing what no other state in the history of our country has done to secure the border, I hired Mike Banks as the State of Texas’ first-ever Border Czar.”

“As an award-winning Border Patrol Agent, with decades of federal law enforcement and border security experience, Mike is the perfect choice to oversee Texas’ fight against the surge of illegal immigration, lethal drugs, and deadly weapons flowing into our state and nation,” Abbott continued. “I have no doubt that Mike’s strong record of leadership and wealth of experience will provide Texans—and Americans—the level of border security expertise they deserve from a proper Border Czar.”

Banks said, “Protecting our nation’s border is something I have dedicated the last 23 years of my life to, and I am very passionate about it. I look forward to strengthening our relationships with law enforcement partners and the community, leveraging all that we can to further protect our great state of Texas and the United States.”

The New York Post noted that when Banks was asked what his role was, he responded, “For me, the #1 priority is to make the State of Texas the least desirable place for illegal immigration to cross.”

Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN) indicated Tuesday that she has reversed course on her previous opposition to removing Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) from the House Foreign Affairs Committee after she met with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) this week.

Spartz’s reversal comes after McCarthy already booted Reps. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Eric Swalwell (D-CA) from the House Intelligence Committee over security concerns surrounding their ability to be trusted with classified information.

The effort to boot Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee comes in response to her history of anti-Semitism.

“I appreciate Speaker McCarthy’s willingness to address legitimate concerns and add due process language to our resolution,” Spartz said in a statement late Tuesday night. “Deliberation and debate are vital for our institution, not top-down approaches.”

“The rule of law, freedom of speech, and due process are fundamental to our Constitutional Republic,” she continued. “Our founding fathers understood that pure democracy is dangerous and can lead to the tyranny of majority, mob rule and dictatorship. As to my fellow conservatives, I think setting a precedent of allowing an appeal process for the Speaker’s and majority-party removal decisions is particularly important to freedom-loving legislators who usually are on the receiving end of issues like this.”

Spartz signaled earlier this month that she opposed the move to remove Omar from the committee because she believed that it was retaliation for Democrats removing GOP members off committees in the past.

“Two wrongs do not make a right,” Spartz said in a previous statement. “Speaker Pelosi took unprecedented actions last Congress to remove Reps. Greene and Gosar from their committees without proper due process. Speaker McCarthy is taking unprecedented actions this Congress to deny some committee assignments to the Minority without proper due process again.”

“As I spoke against it on the House floor two years ago, I will not support this charade again,” she claimed. “Speaker McCarthy needs to stop ‘bread and circuses’ in Congress and start governing for a change.”