Texas governor Greg Abbott has made headlines once again.
Oakland and Auckland, Australia and Austria, Slovakia and Slovenia… the world is full of countries that sound so similar, you'd be forgiven for mistaking one for the other.
But if you're the Governor of an American state, making an unsubstantiated, arguably racist statement to more than 686,000 people, you want to be sure you're talking about the right place.
After years of rallying Texans against immigrants, in the name of fighting “illegal immigration”, Abbott has turned his attention on South Africans, who are supposedly crossing the US/Mexico border in mass numbers. Of course, he has blamed president Joe Biden for letting in so many dreamers who are desperately ditching Cape Town for Houston by swimming across the Atlantic Ocean for days. That, or taking several flights to Mexico City in order to even reach Laredo.
Abbott may have plenty of support back home. But his tweet still received many peculiar reactions from South Africans themselves.
One commentator has spoken on Texas’s “strength” and the power of Republicans.
Forget about the fact that only 62 South African nationals were apprehended at the US/Mexico border between 2007 and 2020. Greg Abbott is a total failure when it comes to his handling of COVID, healthcare, crime, race relations, and the Texas power grid. Mission Accomplished, eh?