What in the WORLD is going on in Texas?
The timing of the 'red state rebellion' during the 2024 election year
Gov. Greg Abbott, R-Texas, has taken his sweet time with dealing with the U.S. border problem in the Lone Star State.
He, like other red-state governors, has slow-walked his handling of the ongoing border crisis, which has facilitated millions of unvetted illegal migrant encounters and crossings since Joe Biden disastrously took office in 2021.
On Wednesday, he issued a tough-talk letter in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to temporarily order the removal of razor wire at the southern border (in response to a standoff with the open-borders Biden administration), which was one of the state’s attempts to keep out the onslaught of illegal migrants flooding into Texas.
He asserted Texas’s constitutional authority to defend and protect itself under Article 1 Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution. Obviously, this is what has needed to happen since day one of this unfettered invasion. However, the critic in me has a lot of questions about this sovereign-state standoff with the federal government.
Newsweek reported on Thursday that states like Florida, Montana, Georgia, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Virginia had declared solidarity with Abbott’s stand to seal his border despite the federal government’s literal demand that they allow the invasion to continue. In fact, at least 25 states have declared their intention to stand with Texas in this border crisis.
While I am a firm believer in sovereign states’ rights and I have been deriding the ongoing border crisis since the day feckless Joe Biden walked into the Oval Office, I have a lot of questions about how the entire crisis has been handled by red state governors in general, as well as Congress.
Busing and flying migrants everywhere
According to the U.S. Customs & Border Patrol (CBP), more than 302,000 illegal migrants were encountered at the border in December 2023 alone, marking a new record-high for encounters in a single month.
President Donald Trump has often postulated that by the end of Biden’s term in office, more than 16 million illegal migrants will have resettled here – and that’s not a pretty picture. Feel-good Americans can wax poetic all day long about “loving thy neighbor,” which is all well and good, but a huge number of the people pouring over our border are young, single, military-aged men. They are engaging in human trafficking and putting our women and children at risk. Cartels are bringing the poison of drug trafficking into our cities and schools (my local school district just received a massive shipment of Narcan). Crime is rising everywhere. We are being, quite literally, invaded by a variety of foreign forces, and they are not here to make our communities more inclusive or diverse.
These people are not here to help us. They are here to hurt us.
Therefore, I found it extremely off-putting when, in the early days of the border crisis, governors like Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., and Greg Abbott took part in the political theatre of transporting illegal migrants into blue states to, apparently, teach those darn blue states a lesson about illegal immigration.
DeSantis, for example, flew illegal migrants from Florida to Martha’s Vineyard, and Abbott has repeatedly bused migrants all around the country. My opinion on these actions was that 1) it was political theatre and 2) it was making the problem worse by moving potential criminals and terrorist entities deeper into the country at the expense of the taxpayer.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said as much in 2022, stating, “At a time when Texas law enforcement is dealing with the impacts of the deluge of crime and drugs that have flowed across our borders, this purely partisan grandstanding is not just unhelpful, it is unlawful.”
I couldn’t agree more.
For nearly three years, Abbott wasted money and resources on moving criminal aliens further into the fabric of our country while banging loudly on his chest in the face of the Biden administration – all in the convenient eyes of the media.
So, forgive me if I feel like his late-to-the-game line in the sand on the issue of the southern border doesn’t necessarily ring true to me. While I agree with sealing the border (of course!), and I agree that the Supreme Court made a fallacious ruling (obviously!), the timing of this showdown doesn’t sit well with me.
This could have been stopped a long time ago
Let’s be real. When Republican candidate Kari Lake was running for governor in Arizona, she had the right idea: declare an invasion and deal with the problem at the border immediately. Lake’s philosophy on border policies was common sense and cut-and-dried. Why waste time on political photo-ops at the border when you know the damage that it’s doing to the country?
Abbott’s slow-walk on the border issue – as well as every red state’s slow walk on it – irks me. This could have been fixed on day one. Why did someone like Abbott wait until millions of people came over the border before finally taking a solid stand?
Media personality and straight-shooter Tucker Carlson correctly observed in September 2023, “How many Texans do you think are all on board with letting seven million people cross into their state illegally? What percentage? Zero…It’s not just frustrating, it’s a betrayal of the poor promise of the country, which is the people rule. That’s a criminal act.”
He also called Abbott and “liar” and a “betrayer.”
Personally, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we’re seeing a flurry of red-state strength during a 2024 election year. It looks good for Abbott, it looks good for other red-state governors, and it makes Biden look bad by forcing him to either take a knee in the face of state sovereignty or further cement his denigrated figure in the eyes of the American people by telling Texas they can’t protect themselves.
President Trump has fully backed the Texas decision to secure its border – he’s been calling for action to protect the border since the day he left office, when he was halfway through the process of building the southern border wall and had successfully implemented the Migrant Protection Protocols.
The president wrote this week in a statement, “We encourage all willing States to deploy their guards to Texas to prevent the entry of Illegals, and to remove them back across the Border. All Americans should support the commonsense measures by Texas authorities to protect the Safety, Security, and Sovereignty of Texas, and of the American people.”
He further vowed, “When I am President, on Day One, instead of fighting Texas, I will work hand in hand with Governor Abbott and other Border States to Stop the Invasion, Seal the Border, and Rapidly Begin the Largest Domestic Deportation Operation in History. Those Biden has let in should not get comfortable because they will be going home.”
The internet keeps talking about civil war – why?
The Civil War erupted in the 1800s largely because of the tensions surrounding state sovereignty. Slavery was one mechanism at play, of course, but that’s not why the Civil War was fought. Let’s be clear: the South was essentially testing the power of federal authority, and when a coalition of Southern states seceded from the Union, it kicked off a deadly conflict.
I’ve seen a lot of comparisons on social media to the conflict of the 1860s against the test of state sovereignty occurring now in the face of the escalating border crisis. The term “civil war” keeps popping up, and I can’t help but think that this is exactly what our internal and external enemies would love: a nation in disarray, rather than united. Brother fighting brother, state fighting state.
I frequently caution friends and readers to take what they hear on the news with a grain of salt. So much of it is a façade – a wag the dog of epic proportions. I think that the sudden and widespread response to the border crisis is political posturing, for the most part.
The damage from the border and the threat is real – don’t get me wrong. President Trump rightly described the destruction of our border and the facilitation of mass illegal migration as a “WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION – OUR DESTRUCTION!!!!” He’s correct. The open border is, indeed, a weapon. We all know that a serious country that is serious about keeping its people safe CANNOT have an open border.
President Trump also issued this solemn warning this week:
“Just 3 years ago we had the strongest and safest Border in U.S. History. Today we have a catastrophe waiting to happen. It is the WORST BORDER IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD, an open wound in our once great Country. TERRORISTS ARE POURING IN, UNCHECKED, FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD. There is now a 100% chance that there will be MAJOR TERROR ATTACKS IN THE USA. CLOSE THE BORDER!”
The “red state rebellion” in the face of the border crisis is conveniently taking place during a critical election year. Again, red-state governors could have acted at ANY TIME to fix this problem. They waited until just 10 months out from Election Day 2024. Think about that.
While I stand with Texas and with the people of this country, I am, overall, disappointed and disillusioned with Republican leadership in this country. They have shown nothing but weakness up until this point, and I’m afraid that, barring an election year, they will return to doing absolutely nothing about the border if given the chance.
I personally believe that the only reason Republicans are taking a stand on the border crisis right now is because the GOP is anticipating President Trump’s prospective 2025 administration. His chances of winning in 2024 are better than ever, and they know that with Trump in the Oval Office, he won’t cut them any slack on the border issue. If they make strides toward fixing the issue now, that will make their own lives easier in the face of the president’s impending “retribution” presidency, which will focus on fixing the immigration issue once and for all, foreign policy peace initiatives, and restarting domestic energy production.
“Those Biden has let in should not get comfortable because they will be going home,” Trump said in his latest statement.
That warning against getting comfortable is not just a friendly suggestion for illegal migrants and potential terrorists embedded into our society: it’s a message for bought-and-paid-for Republican establishment shills to get their rears in gear and do the right thing for the country, because you can bet that President Trump will remember who played ball and who didn’t when he steps back into the White House in 2025.
Photo: Pixabay
Resources:
Go HERE to read more about President Trump’s Agenda47 policy on securing America’s borders.
Read my editorial on RSBN explaining the history of the Alien Enemies Act, which Trump has said he will invoke upon his prospective 2025 administration.
Record illegal immigration information can be read about right HERE.