WATCH: Republican governors slam Biden over border crisis

In a Fox News town hall event Thursday, Laura Ingraham asked Republican state governors to weigh in on illegal immigration at the United States southern border which has surged in the months since President Joe Biden took office.

Ingraham asked Texas Governor Greg Abbott for a message to the Biden Adminsitration about the border crisis, including on the number of migrants being released into communities that are COVID positive.

"So the COVID released is one challenge," said Gov. Abbott, adding that "The Biden first 100 days has been very successful for the cartels, for the drug smugglers, for the human traffickers who are profiteering off of all the migrants who come across the border illegally."

Gov. Abbot stressed that the number of migrants coming across the border is holding up Border Patrol officers, leaving a hole where those with ill intentions can sneak across. Abbott also announced the creation of a program to fill in these gaps with additional people provided by the state.

"And because so many migrants are coming across the border illegally what it means is the border patrol officers are fully occupied processing all the migrants and that leaves open miles of border that the cartels can come across, and thats why I launched what I call 'Operation Lone Star.,' said Gov. Abbott. "We have deployed a thousand Department of Public Safety troops as well as the National Guard to our border to secure our border from the people coming across."

"The deal I want to cut it Texas will secure the border, and the Biden Administration will pay for it," Gov Abbott continued.

Ingraham asked Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds about the backlash she's faced after announcing that her state would not take in migrant children.

"Republicans are heartless, they don't care the kids they don't care about the needs of the greater country," said Ingraham, referring to what she called "pushback from all the usual groups."

"This administration is heartless, they created this crisis at the border. They are putting these children at risk by the policies that they eliminated that we all know were working," said Gov. Reynolds. "I am Governor of the state of Iowa and my number one responsibility is to protect the health and safety of Iowans and it would be irresponsible for me not to keep that in the forefront of every decision that I make.