Photo by Eric Gay/AP
25 Republican Governors announced last week that they are standing with Texas in it’s battle with the federal government to secure the border in Eagle Pass, Texas.
The Supreme Court ruled last week in a 5 to 4 decision that U.S. Border Patrol has the authority to cut the razor wire that Texas set up in Eagle Pass, Texas, but the ruling does not prevent Texas from reinstalling the wire. Last year, Texas sued the federal government for cutting the wire. Despite the ruling, Gov. Abbott doubled down and has vowed that Texas will not remove the razor.
Last week Abbot sent a letter claiming that the federal government had “broken the compact between the United States and the States” with its current immigration policy. Abbott cited Article 4, section 4 of the U.S. Constitution which promises that the federal government “shall protect each (state) against invasion” and Article 1, section 10, clause 3, which states that the states have the “sovereign interest in protecting their borders.”
Texas Lt. Gov Dan Patrick appeared on an episode of the Ingraham Angle and called for the Biden administration to “get out of our way” and that “we don’t need them” to help secure the border.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton also wrote a letter to the Biden administration last week, giving the federal government until February 15 to hand over documents showing plat maps and deeds proving that the United States government legally owns the land in Eagle Pass.
Paxton added in the letter that “Texas never approved that transaction as required by Article IV, section 10 of the Texas Constitution” and that the city of Eagle Pass had no constitutional authority to turn that land over to the federal government.
Paxton concluded that “this office will continue to defend Texas’ efforts to protect its southern border against every effort by the Biden administration to undermine the State’s constitutional right of self-defense. You should advise your clients to join us in those efforts by doing their job and following the law”.
There are now growing calls for President Biden to federalize the Texas National Guard, including from Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro who said that “Greg Abbott has continued to use political stunts and inflammatory language to advance his own agenda, violating the Constitution and endangering both U.S. citizens and asylum seekers”.
“Abbott is following the Donald Trump playbook: make immigration harder and more dangerous, so asylum seekers are pushed into the hands of cartels and the system remains broken” Castro continued.
Congressman Greg Casar said that he agreed with Rep. Castro and that “POTUS needs to establish sole federal control of the Texas National Guard”.
President Biden does have the constitutional authority to federalize a states National Guard under Title 10. This would put the President and the defense Secretary in direct control of the National Guard, with active duty officers taking over day to day command.
Texas, however, also has a state guard which can not be federalized. Daniel Miller, President of the Texas Nationalist Movement, urged Abbott last week to expand and militarize the Texas State Guard.
Abbott told Tucker Carlson that if Biden did federalize the National Guard it would be “a boneheaded move” but that the state will be ready in the “unlikely event”.
“For one, as you might imagine, we are prepared in the event that that unlikely event does occur to make sure that we will be able to continue exactly what we’ve been doing over the past month and that is building these barriers” Abbott said in the interview.
House Speaker Mike Johnson and former President Donald Trump have also announced that they stand with Gov. Abbott.
Despite reports of tension between Border Patrol and the Texas military, the Border Patrol Union debunked the claims on Friday and said “there is no fight between rank-and-file BP agents and the TX NG, Gov. Abbott, or TX DPS. It may make flashy headlines, but it simply isn’t true”. Border Patrol also called claims that they will start arresting TX NG members “fake news”.