President Barack Obama and Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) will participate in what's likely to be a tense meeting on Wednesday regarding the humanitarian crisis at the border, after the governor accused the president of causing the situation.
After initially turning down the White House's offer for Perry to meet Obama when he lands in Austin, Texas, the governor's office announced Perry will attend a separate meeting on the border crisis.
"Governor Perry is pleased that President Obama has accepted his invitation to discuss the humanitarian and national security crises along our southern border, and he looks forward to meeting with the president tomorrow," Perry spokesman Felix Browne said Tuesday, according to The Washington Post.
Perry had previously criticized the White House's request for what he called a "a quick handshake on the tarmac," but said he would be open to a more substantive meeting. He will join an already scheduled meeting in Dallas with the president, local officials and religious leaders to discuss the border situation.
Texas is facing significant increases in immigrants, many of them unaccompanied minors, crossing the border illegally from Mexico. Perry has said Obama is to blame for a "failure of leadership," and has even gone so far as to imply there could be some type of conspiracy.
"We either have an incredibly inept administration, or they're in on this somehow or another," Perry said last month, according to the Austin American-Statesman. "I mean I hate to be conspiratorial, but I mean how do you move that many people from Central America across Mexico and then into the United States without there being a fairly coordinated effort?"
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