“Shutting the border is Texas’ constitutional duty, not an act of insurrection against the Federal Government – and perhaps the only way to save the Union from imploding.”
America has been the world’s immigration magnet for its entire history. Freedom has that effect. The national story of permitting the world to come and share in its unparalleled freedom and prosperity is unique.
It needs no explanation or defense – and certainly no apology.
Ironically, as with all virtuous things, it takes two sides to make a fine cutting edge. The very generosity, goodness, and the power of America’s founding ethos are themselves the other side of the sharp blade that can be the nation’s undoing.
For generations now, the American ruling class and its elites have insisted that the American experiment that produced so much for so many on a scale unknown in human history resulted from voracious greed, exploitation, racism, and dumb luck. They demand that we accept that it’s a root sin that the nation has prospered while so many have not, and still cling to righteousness and mercy that others never sought. We’re told that all the good America has done in the world is dwarfed by what is left undone. And for that guilt, no cost will satiate the appetite for retribution for the American ruling class.
The elites demand that our culture, wealth, freedom, and especially our God must be sacrificed to a waiting world that could never build any of it on its own, nor keep it, were it not for the United States of America. Now, we must let whoever chooses to come to our country uninvited – and it is Americans who must assimilate to them, not they to us.
The American ruling and political class no longer even pretend to hide their hatred for the American experiment in self-government and freedom. Their laws and public infatuation with putting American citizens last in any priority, not first, testify against them. No better evidence than illegal immigration proves the point. (House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has stated that illegal aliens are the “true and legitimate heirs” of the Founding Fathers.) Our “rulers” want to disassemble the United States, to reduce her to the status of the many – that she would not be the “shinning City on a hill” but a crushed experiment in human freedom never to be visited again.
While immigration into the US has been quarrelsome and provoked political and even violent backlash at various times (as it has in every civilization), the American story of immigration has been remarkable and exceptional in world history.
After the country’s first major immigration surge from 1880-1930, the foreign-born population doubled to over 14 million in a population of just 120 million. Since 1965 increased immigration levels have allowed millions to enter per year legally. Followed by the 1980 Refugee Act, the US has taken in more immigrants than every other country in the world combined by far. Today approximately 45 million people, or 14% of the population, are foreign-born
Against this backdrop, illegal immigration has been a massive problem for more than 50 years. The best guess is that there are 20 million illegal aliens today in the US (around 45% of them are visa overstays). The motivation to leave failed counties that refuse to embrace the miracle of free economies and personal freedom is understandable. But, the result of uncontrolled and undocumented entry brings chaos, human exploitation, trafficking and creates a social underclass separated from mainstream American life for want of assimilation. The statistics are plain enough. The share of adults who live in middle-income households has dropped steadily from 61% in 1970 to 51% in 2013 (here), where it hovers. Low-skilled wages – that primarily affect other minorities – have also seen a drop over the decades, with some studies showing a decline of real wages of up to 7.4 percent in traditionally low-skill trades and services.
Sadly, America’s ruling class and business titans love cheap labor and the passive obedience of people with limited legal recourse.
But 2021 is different.
After decades of virtually unconstrained illegal immigration and the accompanying economic and social dislocations it has caused, what is happening on the US-Mexican border since January 2021 is stunning. It is an unprecedented and reprehensible act of lawless conduct on the part of the Biden regime in Washington and an abdication of responsibility by Congress.
Since January, nearly a million and half illegal aliens (from over 100 countries) have crossed the southwestern borders – 212,000 did so in July alone. Most officials now expect that number to easily exceed two million for the year, all claiming asylum. That claim provides illegal aliens the right to have a court determine their asylum claim before any removal action. In October 2020, the Department of Homeland Security released a report that Stated that 1.15 million aliens in the US were already in the asylum processing system (historically, only 10% of the asylum seekers show up for court appearances) – enough to make them the 43rd largest State! Adding another two million people means that 2.8 million will disappear into the cities and towns of the country – more people than 18 states have in them.
This crisis has spun entirely out of Washington’s control. It’s a stunning disaster (made even worse by estimates that nearly 15% of the illegal aliens are COVID positive) and an unspeakable tragedy along the borders of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. This week we learned that 11,500 illegal aliens had been released into McAllen, Texas, a town of 142,000 in south Texas. Already in a “State of Emergency,” McAllen has had to increase its COVID quarantine and sick tent capacity to 2,000.
Democratic mayors along the Texas-Mexican border complain that Washington isn’t returning phone calls, even as their communities are being “destroyed” by mobs of illegals released into their towns without prior warning. It is also a calamity for the States, cities, and small towns across America into which the US government is already dumping tens of thousands – soon to be millions – of people without notice. The unexpected financial obligation placed on local and State governments for shelter, education, and health services will be enormous. (A 2019 Pew Research study found less than 25% of illegal aliens from Mexico and Central America speak proficient English. Others are essentially illiterate even in their native language.)
Illegal immigration and its effects have morphed into a “nation-changing” human catastrophe for US citizens – and illegal aliens – alike. One need look no further than California, transformed from affluence and prosperity to the highest rate of poverty in the nation, in a single generation. It teeters on slipping into third-world status
The Federal Government has recklessly endangered the nation’s future by ignoring the established immigration laws passed by the “peoples” Congress.
The time has come for Texas – the only State equipped with the personnel and equipment to do so to challenge the Federal Government’s abandonment of its Constitutional duty to the various sovereign States and every American citizen by sealing the border itself.
(Texas has a 21,000 member Texas National Guard, including air components and Special Forces, and the Texas State Guard has 1,600 members. The Texas Department of Public Safety has 5,000 officers, including the Texas Rangers and State Troopers. It is a well-equipped force with air, marine, and intelligence capabilities combined with extensive experience fighting cartels, smuggling, and gangs on the Texas-Mexico border.)
Texas can stop the “invasion” of further millions crossing the borders by not allowing illegal aliens who have chosen to ignore international and Federal law to cross the Rio Grande and touch US soil in the first place. Sealing the Mexican border at critical crossing points and ignoring the Federal enforcement presence is Texas’ constitutional duty, not an act of insurrection against the Federal Government – and perhaps the only way to save the Union from imploding.
The State clearly has the authority to do so. Texas also has the moral obligation to do so. (See my full article on the history of immigration here.)
In April, I wrote, “If the individual sovereign States in the Union already have the constitutional power (Article 1, Section10) that when “actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit delay” to defend against invasions up to waging war, then surely they have the sovereign power to enforce order on the lawless borders in the absence of the Federal Government’s willingness to uphold civil order and existing federal immigration law.”
After five decades, the political debate over illegal immigration – where the citizens vote consistently by wide margins for orderly and legal immigration and against unlawful entry while Washington and big business interests continually sabotage those wishes – has come to a critical juncture. The unprecedented invasion at the southwestern border has the potential to irreparably destroy what little remains of the public trust that the political and ruling class has in Washington have any interest or allegiance to the original Founding of the Constitutional Republic. The State of Texas may have the last opportunity to “get it right” and intercede where the Federal Government has failed before the nation’s fabric is ripped apart, and no future remedy is available.