Leading Texas Newspaper Raises ‘Concern’ About Greg Abbott

The Dallas Morning News, a leading Texas newspaper, raised a “concern” about Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott on Friday for hesitating to show support for a South Korean guest worker program.

Earlier this week, Abbott was in Seoul during a three-nation economic development mission to Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan. During Abbott’s visit, South Korean Foreign Affairs Minister Cho Tae-yul asked the Texas governor to support the Partner with Korea Act, a bipartisan bill in Congress that would create up to 15,000 guest worker visas a year for South Koreans with at least a bachelor’s degree.

The act would not take away from American jobs as potential employers would have to ensure that the guest workers are not hired for jobs that Americans could fill.

The Dallas Morning News commended Abbott for trying to strengthen relations between Texas and the three East Asian countries, “But we do have a concern with his trip…the governor’s big miss here was his reluctance to signal support for a U.S. guest worker program for South Koreans,” the newspaper’s editorial staff wrote in an opinion piece published on Thursday.

Newsweek reached out to Abbott’s office via email for comment.

During his conversation with Abbott, Cho told the Texas Governor, “For the sake of your interests, I hope you will call congressmen to sponsor this bill,” The Dallas Morning News previously reported.

Abbott replied, “I’m always going to be focused on Texas legislation as opposed to what is going on in Congress, but I’ll look into it.”

Texas leads the nation in semiconductor manufacturing. In June 2023, Abbott signed the Texas CHIPS Act into law, which invested nearly $1.4 million in the semiconductor industry. Meanwhile, Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan are the top three semiconductor producers in the world.

Representative Joaquin Castro, a Democrat, is the only Texas lawmaker to co-sponsor the Partner with Korea Act in the House. No Texas senators have sponsored a companion bill in the upper chamber.

“Abbott has never been shy about taking the federal government to task for failing to control illegal immigration across the southern border,” The Dallas Morning News editorial read. “This sudden apathy about immigration policymaking in Washington is hard to believe.”

The U.S.-Mexico border has seen a massive surge in illegal migrant crossings in recent years and Texas has taken the brunt of it. Abbott has implemented vast deterrence tactics and even created a program to bus migrants from Texas to Democratic states. Abbott’s immigration policies are currently being fought by the Biden administration in court.

“We need both a secure border and an orderly immigration system that grows our skilled labor force,” The Dallas Morning News wrote. “If South Korea wants to send us tech workers, then Texas should be rolling out the red carpet.”