Texas to Build Its Own Border Wall and Arrest Illegal Immigrants: Governor
Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced a border security plan that includes enforcing the law, building more wall, and activating EMAC.
Governor Abbott said,
We’re going to start making arrests—sending a message to anyone thinking about coming here—you’re not getting a free pass. You’re getting a straight pass to a jail cell.
Both Texas and Arizona will invoke the Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC),1 which is an interstate compact that seeks support from other states during an emergency situation such as hurricanes, storms, floods, wildfires, and most recently COVID-19.2
Governor Abbott and Arizona Governor Ducey are seeking additional law enforcement officers, drones, and helicopters to help with the surge in illegal crossings.3
In a statement, Abbott acknowledged that the Biden administration’s policies have created a humanitarian crisis at the southern border with record levels of illegal immigrants, drugs, and weapons pouring into Texas.
While securing the border is the federal government’s responsibility, Texas will not sit idly by as this crisis grows. The state is working collaboratively with communities impacted by the crisis to arrest and detain individuals coming into Texas illegally.
Our efforts will only be effective if we work together to secure the border, make criminal arrests, protect landowners, rid our communities of dangerous drugs, and provide Texans with the support they need and deserve. This is an unprecedented crisis, and Texas is responding with the most robust and comprehensive border plan the nation has ever seen.
Unfortunately, the Biden administration has put identity politics over protecting the American people, but hey, at least Biden isn’t tweeting mean things right? Vice President Harris, who Biden tasked with overseeing the border, seems to think the humanitarian crisis is funny.
Some speculate she refuses to go to the southern border because it would make for a bad “photo-op.” The Biden Administration blocked reporters from taking photos of “kids in cages” by using COVID-19 as a pretext. Even liberal media outlets condemn them for this abuse of power because it corrodes trust in “trust the science” when they use a global pandemic to hide their own hypocrisy. The truth is that the Democratic Party has been the party of “kids in cages” because of their reluctance to stop or deport illegal immigrants, which is why the Obama administration built those cages in the first place.
If American schools had succeeded in teaching critical thinking then most Democrats would acknowledge that border walls work and that Trump’s threat to “make Mexico pay for it” was actually effective in reducing illegal crossings.
Mexican officials say Mr. López Obrador feels he has no choice. Last year, Mr. Trump threatened to impose escalating tariffs on Mexico’s exports to the U.S. unless the country did more to stop migrants from reaching the U.S. Such a move would have devastated the Mexican economy, which relies heavily on manufactured exports to the U.S. — Wall Street Journal article by By José de Córdoba and Juan Montes4
In all honesty, it really isn’t that difficult for the richest and most powerful country in human history from stopping hundreds of thousands of people from illegally crossing the border, as virtually every other country on Earth does, but we choose not to. Stopping illegal immigration isn’t about American capability, but political will!
Ask yourself: what political party benefits more from America turning into Mexico, Honduras, or Guatemala? If that’s what you want then you know how to vote. For the record, I’m not making a racial point, which my friends on the left are quick to judge people by, but a socio-economic point. Democrats get more votes from the low-income demographic hence why it benefits them to increase the demographic’s size.
Anyway, this article isn’t directed at border wall skeptics because if at this point you don’t see the evidence of its effectiveness then I’d effectively be speaking to a wall.
This article is directed at fellow patriots and freethinkers.
Governor Abbott’s leadership on this humanitarian issue highlights the fact that we don’t need the federal government to fund more wall/drones/enforcement on the southern border.
All we need is Republicans’ putting America First.
All 27 Republican Governors could assist Texas and the other border states under the Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC) to help “finish the wall” and better fund our border security.
But here are three central criticisms of this interstate approach:
Retiring a Winning Issue: The problem with solving any political issue is the people who got elected to solve it will no longer have that issue to win on again. The rise in illegal border crossings is a problem that unites and energizes much of the Republican Party. There aren’t many issues that do that, which is why Trump made it the central issue of his 2016 campaign.
Democrat B-Hole: California and New Mexico are the only two blue states on the southern border. They definitely won’t activate EMAC for their border emergency. With that said, up until 2019, New Mexico had a Republican Governor so there is hope Republicans can someday take back the state and it isn’t ancient history when California had a Republican Governor. Will one will be back? For the time being, we’ll just have to accept that those blue states will be a major gap in our improved border security system, but nonetheless by dramatically reducing illegal crossings in red states that means more illegal traffic would flow into the blue states, which would allow federal border patrol agents to focus more of their attention there.
America Second: Lastly is the free-rider concern. The whole country will get the benefit of enhanced border security, but only the red states who agree to give assistance under EMAC would effectively be paying for it. To which I’d ask, what happened to America First? In national defense, we should put national interest above state interest. It’s undeniable that spending money on the border now will save every state money in the long-run. In simplistic terms, $1 spent on the border today will save us $10 in the future in terms of not having to pay as much for welfare benefits (as Democrats seek to expand them), suppressed wages, and a lower-information electorate. A high estimate for finishing the wall puts the price tag at around $30 billion (a drop in the bucket compared to the trillions we just spent). That would be roughly $1 billion per red state. Each red state could contribute to the EMAC border emergency about $250 million a year for the next 4 years.
EMAC is a short-term solution though.
To continue to maintain the wall and have a strong border control presence I recommend the creation of an interstate agency: The Border Authority.
I’m a big fan of interstate agencies. They can act as a useful middle ground between state independence (i.e. secession) and federal subjugation.
In 2009, Northeastern Blue States felt the federal government wasn’t reducing C02 enough so they created the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.5
Southern Red States feel the federal government isn’t reducing illegal crossings enough so they should create the Border Authority.
The closest precedent for this would be the NY/NJ Port Authority Police, which is the largest transit-related police force in the United States.6 Like the Port Authority, the Border Authority could be funded via bonds and tolls. Republicans could cheerlead a national bond-buying campaign.
We could call them “Border Bonds.”
It should be clear to Americans by now that we can’t rely on the Democratic Party to enforce the law with any sense of urgency. It isn’t in their political self-interest do so. Republican Governors must use the power they already have to defend the greatest nation on Earth before America goes south fast.
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https://www.fema.gov/pdf/emergency/nrf/EMACoverviewForNRF.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Management_Assistance_Compact#:~:text=The%20Emergency%20Management%20Assistance%20Compact,%2Dmade%20disasters%2C%20including%20terrorism.&text=EMAC%20facilitates%20the%20maximum%20use,resources%20within%20member%20states'%20inventories.
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2021/06/10/Texas-border-wall-Gov-Greg-Abbott/8931623367836/
https://www.wsj.com/articles/trumps-best-means-for-stopping-migrants-is-mexicos-government-11579899262
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regional_Greenhouse_Gas_Initiative
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Authority_of_New_York_and_New_Jersey_Police_Department