On Tuesday, the Texas National Guard’s 36th Infantry Division began deploying personnel, military vehicles, and concertina wire (aka razor wire) on the state’s border with Mexico in an attempt to slow down illegal immigration, which has significantly increased since the Biden administration was put in charge in 2021. The deployment is largely confined to the El Paso area.
The deployment seems to be, at least in part, a reaction to El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser’s declaration of December 17, in which the city declared that it “is faced with the imminent threat of widespread injury or loss of life resulting from a surge in transient migrants traveling to the region.”
In addition, on November 15, Texas Governor Greg Abbott invoked invasion clauses of the U.S. and Texas Constitutions and hinted that such actions by the Texas National Guard might take place in response to the influx of illegal immigrants absent any federal assistance, which has been lacking during the Biden administration.
Abbott called out the administration for its lackadaisical attitude where the border is concerned.
“President Biden will go anywhere … except the border,” Abbott tweeted. “Texas communities are bearing the burden of Biden’s open border policies. As the federal government does nothing, we continue to step up to secure our border.”
Article IV, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution states: “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them from Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence.”
And Article I, Section 10, Clause 3 states that “No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit delay.” (Emphasis added.)
Texas and Arizona in particular believe that they are in “such imminent Danger.” President Biden has been invited many times to observe the situation but, thus far, has declined.
As Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich recently told popular commentator Tim Pool’s TimCast program, “The reality is, if you look at Article 1, Section 10 of the U.S. Constitution, you look at Article 4, the Section 4 of the Constitution, I mean, the states have a right to defend themselves, and the federal government has an obligation to defend the states against an invasion.”
“And when they do not do so, the governors of the respective states acting as essentially commander-in-chiefs of their states can order their militia [to] mobilize their national guard to fight or repel that invasion,” the Arizona AG concluded.
Title 42, a provision of federal law that allows the federal government to keep aliens from entering the country to prevent communicable disease, was set to end this week, which prompted a huge number of migrants to gather in the dangerous Mexican border city of Juárez. The U.S. Border Patrol has been deluged for two years now, and state governments are finally getting the message that the federal government will not help.
At least one Texas judge believes that the Texas National Guard has overstepped its bounds as it pertains to the border situation.
“I am very confident that it was not coordinated with Border Patrol,” said El Paso County Judge Ricardo Samaniego. “I have always insisted that any assistance from the state has to be part of our overall strategy and in lockstep with our own enforcement strategy.”
Despite Washington’s ambivalence, the situation at the southern border is quite dangerous to American citizens as well as to the immigrants who look to cross the U.S. border.
“I’m concerned for the safety and welfare of the migrants but the cartels are not,” Major General Win Burkett told the New York Post.
Burkett commands 500 Texas National Guard troops at the border and believes that drug cartels are taking advantage of the confused situation.
“[The drug cartels] are exploiting this migrant surge so that they can have unimpeded access to the border,” Burkett said. “Our message to the migrants is that this is not safe. There have been drownings every day of people crossing the river at Eagle Pass where the water is deep, and there is a high risk of hypothermia as the temperature drops.”
The deployment of razor wire, military vehicles, and armed personnel on the border lies directly at the feet of the Biden administration, which seems to be actively working against any border control rather than enforcing it. States such as Texas now have no options other than to deal with the situation on their own or simply allow themselves to be invaded.
And it’s not “anti-immigrant” or “racist” to say so.
