Texas Governor Greg Abbott Declares that Texas’ Right To Defend Border From Migrant Invasion Trumps Federal Law
Jose Nino
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On January 24, 2024, Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued a statement declaring Texas’ constitutional right to defend and protect itself from an invasion at the southern border. This came at a time when state and federal authorities have locked horns over federal agents encroaching on Shelby Park in Eagle Pass, Texas.
Abbott instructed state law enforcement to seize the park in early January. Abbott’s statement holds Biden culpable for allowing the situation at the southern border to deteriorate to such alarming levels.
A part of Abbott’s statement reads as follows:
President Biden has violated his oath to faithfully execute immigration laws enacted by Congress. Instead of prosecuting immigrants for the federal crime of illegal entry, President Biden has sent his lawyers into federal courts to sue Texas for taking action to secure the border.
President Biden has instructed his agencies to ignore federal statutes that mandate the detention of illegal immigrants. The effect is to illegally allow their en masse parole into the United States.
By wasting taxpayer dollars to tear open Texas’s border security infrastructure, President Biden has enticed illegal immigrants away from the 28 legal entry points along this State’s southern border— bridges where nobody drowns—and into the dangerous waters of the Rio Grande.
In the statement, Abbott alluded to the framers of the US Constitution and their intent with respect to a situation dealing with a constitutionally derelict federal government, declaring:
James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and the other visionaries who wrote the U.S. Constitution foresaw that States should not be left to the mercy of a lawless president who does nothing to stop external threats like cartels smuggling millions of illegal immigrants across the border. That is why the Framers included both Article IV, § 4, which promises that the federal government ‘shall protect each [State] against invasion,’ and Article I, § 10, Clause 3, which acknowledges ‘the States’ sovereign interest in protecting their borders.’ Arizona v. United States, 567 U.S. 387, 419 (2012) (Scalia, J., dissenting).
In the statement, the Governor made his case for signing a declaration of invasion as outlined by Article I, § 10, Clause 3, activating Texas’s constitutional power to defend and protect itself. Abbott remarked, “That authority is the supreme law of the land and supersedes any federal statutes to the contrary.”
The statement came on the heels of a 5-4 US Supreme Court order overturning a temporary order by the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which halted the Border Patrol from slashing wire and fencing installed by the state government. The court kicked the matter back to the lower court as litigation continues.
This current legal ordeal demonstrates a new dynamic in US politics, where states are slowly beginning to assume functions that traditionally belonged to the federal government. Such dynamics will intensify as the federal government grows more incumbent and unstable.
People will need to buckle up because things are only going to get more unstable from here on out.
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