Texas Governor Greg Abbott has taken a firm hold of illegal immigration, willing to independently protect a section of the US-Mexico border amid the federal government’s refusal to do so. An open confrontation has begun between the Texas authorities and the federal government.
"The failure of the Biden Administration to fulfill the duties [and protect the border] <...> has triggered [a situation] which reserves to this State the right of self-defense. For these reasons, I have already declared an invasion [of illegal migrants]," the governor said in a statement. Abbott called this part of his constitutional authority, saying that the federal government "has a constitutional duty to enforce federal laws protecting States, including immigration laws on the books right now." "President Biden has refused to enforce those laws and has even violated them. The result is that he has smashed records for illegal immigration," Abbott said. The last three years saw six million people enter the country, and December 2023 featured a monthly record of 300,000.
A little later, Abbott told Bloomberg he would "add more razor wire along the border with Mexico to crack down on illegal immigration" from Latin American countries. This came as his response to the ruling by US Supreme Court of January 22 to temporarily let US Border Patrol agents cut or remove razor-wire fencing that Texas officials placed along part of the Republican-governed state's border with Mexico to deter illegal border crossings. This has been Texas’ explicit challenge to Washington with a warning "Don't you dare touch us!". Moreover, Abbott ordered to send local National Guard to the border area to prevent security forces subordinate to the federal government from dismantling razor-wire fences.
Things are heating up as ex-president Donald Trump has announced support for the Mr. Abbot, with 25 Republican governors following suit. They accused the administration of defying to protect the American border and fight illegal migration. "President Biden and his Administration have left Americans and our country completely vulnerable to unprecedented illegal immigration pouring across the Southern border. Instead of upholding the rule of law and securing the border, the Biden Administration has attacked and sued Texas for stepping up to protect American citizens from historic levels of illegal immigrants, deadly drugs like fentanyl, and terrorists entering our country," the governors wrote as quoted by TASS.
Biden is seeking to maneuver and has urged congressmen with both parties to approve a reform to control migration that would allow him to “close the border” with Mexico “when it is saturated”. The fact is that administration members and a bipartisan group of senators have been consulting on moves to harness the border crisis.
And the Republicans have accused Biden of deliberately exacerbating it. House Speaker Mike Johnson said the US president already had every latitude to take stringent measures. Current immigration laws, he pointed out particularly, make the POTUS fully authorized and empowered to "suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate." Meanwhile, the country has been exercising the capture-and-release approach. Johnson suggests that the president should immediately expand the local authorities’ power to speed up migrant expulsion and reinvigorate the border wall project once proposed and led by President Trump.
All of the abovementioned suggests that both Republican congressmen and Texas authorities, along with other Republican governors, are perfectly aware that the administration is engaged in plain ignorance and has no intent to pass on the merits of the case. The conflict is really far from being resolved. Many analysts agree that the Democrats are contributing to the immigrant influx and legalization in order to expand their future electoral base. And today’s key objective is encouraging the entire Latin American population to vote for the Democratic candidate in the upcoming presidential race.
The southern border migration crisis has caused a deeper social split in America, with its main “watershed” lying in the so-called "gender ideology". Those backing traditional values have united around Trump and deem the fight against Biden and all the Democrats as a struggle for their children’s future free of the "transgender" psychosis imposed by the liberal establishment.
What are the implications of the Texas authorities’ decision to independently protect the US southern border bypassing the federal authorities and disobeying the Supreme Court’s ruling? Many people reasonably believe that America has come close to a new war between the North and the South.
In this regard, let’s recall one of the 2024 forecasts for the United States: the Biden administration would impose "martial law" and cancel presidential elections, which is the only way to prevent Trump from seizing the White House again. Wouldn’t this be brought about by the new civil war? And is it feasible that the "deep state" deliberately provokes southern states to secede with its open-border policy, which implies an internal national conflict? The question is whether the "deep state" will prove able to control the conflict after all.
