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The original was posted on /r/keep_track by /u/rusticgorilla on 2024-01-30 18:52:41.

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Texas border

The confrontation between Texas and the federal government intensified last week after the state defied a U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowing Border Patrol to cut razor wire along the Rio Grande.

The case

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the Biden administration last October, alleging that Border Patrol “illegally destroyed” state property when its agents cut through razor wire on the banks of the Rio Grande to “assist” migrants to “illegally cross” the border. Gov. Greg Abbott ® then deployed the Texas National Guard to Shelby Park, a roughly 2.5-mile area along the Rio Grande in Eagle Pass, to block the federal government’s access.

The Biden administration ultimately appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that Texas violated the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution by using “state tort law to restrain federal Border Patrol agents carrying out their federal duties.”

The Supreme Court ruled against Texas on its emergency docket on Monday, issuing a 5-4 decision allowing federal agents to access and cut the razor wire. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the Democratic appointees in the majority. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh would have allowed Texas to restrict federal access to the border.

Defiance

Instead of complying with the Supreme Court order and removing the blockade of Shelby Park, Gov. Abbott and the Texas Military Department (which is made up of various branches of the state National Guard) doubled down.

Air Force Maj. Gen. Thomas Suelzer was appointed by Abbott to oversee the Texas National Guard and Texas State Guard as the agency’s adjutant general. He told staff that he believes the ruling only permits Border Patrol to cut through obstacles to retrieve stranded migrants, the source said. Suelzer added that his troops will repair any obstacles destroyed by federal agents, and that his troops won’t allow the feds to set up migrant processing centers in areas they’ve blocked.

“The Texas Military Department continues to hold the line in Shelby Park to deter and prevent unlawful entry into the State of Texas,” the agency said in an unsigned statement Tuesday. “We remain resolute in our actions to secure our border, preserve the rule of law, and protect the sovereignty of our State.”

The next day, Gov. Abbott issued a statement invoking a Confederate-era theory used to support the secession of slave states from the union. “The federal government has broken the compact between the United States and the States,” Abbott wrote. The line is strikingly similar to the language used in the secession acts, which begin with a declaration that the southern states sought “to dissolve the union” that was “united under the compact” of the U.S. Constitution. By threatening to restrict slavery and violate the rights of southern states, the Confederates believed the federal government had broken the compact and, thus, allowed them to secede from the union.

Similarly, Abbott alleges that the Biden administration has failed to enforce Article IV, § 4, of the Constitution by “do[ing] nothing to stop” illegal immigration: “The Executive Branch of the United States 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.” Therefore, Abbott went on to say, the state will continue “to secure the Texas border” from an “invasion” of immigrants. “Texas’s constitutional authority to defend and protect itself…is the supreme law of the land and supersedes any federal statutes to the contrary.”

  • All this talk of an “invasion” probably feels familiar—it is a common rightwing trope that appears every election year. Remember the migrant caravans of 2018 (Fox News, 2020 (Fox News), and 2022 (Fox News)? Invoking the threat of a surge of immigrants, in addition to being dangerously racist, is also seen as so politically advantageous for Republicans that they are willing to kill the most far-right immigration bill in recent memory. Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), who is leading negotiations over the bill, expressed frustration on Fox News Sunday that many Republicans have told him they “don’t want a change in law because it’s a presidential election year.”
  • Read more about the flawed legal reasoning behind Abbott’s declaration of an invasion.

And, like with the secession acts, Texas isn’t alone: More than two dozen other state governors have thrown their support behind Abbott’s defiance of both the Constitution and the Supreme Court. On Thursday, all but one Republican governor—Phil Scott (VT) —released a public statement echoing the same Confederate compact language used by Abbott. “President Biden and his Administration have left Americans and our country completely vulnerable to unprecedented illegal immigration pouring across the Southern border…Because the Biden Administration has abdicated its constitutional compact duties to the states, Texas has every legal justification to protect the sovereignty of our states and our nation,” the 25 governors wrote.

Far-right convoy

Anti-immigrant rhetoric used by Republican politicians like Abbott and Trump has already inspired violent incidents, including the 2019 El Paso Walmart shooting, and will likely bring about future dangerous situations. Take, for instance, the far-right armed convoy of “patriots” that is setting out to Texas this week to “take back” the border from federal authorities:

Vice: The organizers of the “Take Our Border Back” convoy have called themselves “God’s army” and say they’re on a mission to stand up against the “globalists” who they claim are conspiring to keep U.S. borders open and destroy the country.

“This is a biblical, monumental moment that’s been put together by God,” one convoy organizer said on a recent planning call. “We are besieged on all sides by dark forces of evil,” said another. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God. It is time for the remnant to rise.” (The remnant, from the Book of Revelation, are the ones who remain faithful to Jesus Christ in times of crisis).

Wired: A retired US Army lieutenant colonel is organizing an armed convoy next week to the Texas border to, he says, hunt down migrants crossing into the US from Mexico…Pete Chambers, the lieutenant colonel who says he was a Green Beret, appeared on far-right school-shooting conspiracist Alex Jones’ InfoWars show on Thursday to outline plans for the Take Back Our Border convoy, which has been primarily organized on Telegram.

“What gets us to the enemy quickly is find, fix, and finish,” Chambers told Jones. “That’s what we did in Syria when we took out ISIS really quick. Now we don’t have the authorities to finish, so what we can do is fix the location of where the bad guys are and pair up with law enforcement who are constitutionally sound.”

It is unclear how many members the convoy will ultimately amass, particularly amid paranoia over “federal entrapment” and “psyo…

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