The standoff was inevitable, with the Biden administration’s open borders policies flooding neighborhoods throughout the state with unscreened illegal immigrants, some of whom are potential terrorists, drug traffickers and human traffickers. Even those who don’t fall into one of those categories and are simply looking for a better life are a significant burden on the state. They need to be processed, fed and housed, for starters, and taxpayers are footing the bill.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott explained the magnitude of the problem: “Under President Biden’s lawless border policies, more than 6 million illegal immigrants have crossed our southern border in just 3 years. That is more than the population of 33 different States in this country. This illegal refusal to protect the States has inflicted unprecedented harm on the People all across the United States.”
The federal government has been not just unhelpful but downright combative, cutting down razor wire erected by state officials to deter illegal crossings so the influx can continue unabated. It’s only natural that Texas is desperate to protect itself – and they’re 100 percent within their rights to do so, according to the Constitution.
Abbott points out that Article IV, § 4, states that the federal government “shall protect each [State] against invasion,” and its failure to do so has triggered Article I, § 10, Clause 3, which gives states the right to self-defense when invaded.
Abbott wrote: “For these reasons, I have already declared an invasion under Article I, § 10, Clause 3 to invoke Texas’s constitutional authority to defend and protect itself. That authority is the supreme law of the land and supersedes any federal statutes to the contrary. The Texas National Guard, the Texas Department of Public Safety and other Texas personnel are acting on that authority, as well as state law, to secure the Texas border.”
Since it is up to the states themselves to determine if they have been invaded, his logic is sound. The objective of this section of the Constitution is to give states certain powers outside the federal government’s authority; if determining whether a state was being invaded was truly up to the feds, there would have been no point in including this section.
Republican governors rally behind Gov. Abbott
Fourteen Republican governors who support Texas’s stance are headed to the U.S.-Mexico border in Eagle Pass this weekend, where they will undergo a security briefing and be updated on the state’s Operation Lone Star mission. The governors in attendance all support the state’s right to take action when the feds have failed in their duty to keep them safe. Abbott has been backed by 25 Republican governors overall, along with U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson and former President Donald Trump.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wrote on X: “If the Constitution really made states powerless to defend themselves against an invasion, it wouldn’t have been ratified in the first place and Texas would have never joined the union when it did.”
As Texas and the Biden administration continue their battle, the problem of illegal immigration is getting worse. In December, the U.S. southern border registered its highest number of illegal migrant encounters on record at 302,000.
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