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County officials in South Texas called on Gov. Greg Abbott to declare an ‘invasion’. Under the Constitution of Texas and the United States, the ‘invasion’ status would allow the usage of state resources to expel illegal immigrants — despite deportations being a responsibility of the federal government.
“The Biden administration won’t do a thing about it,” said Kinney County Judge Tully Shahan, whose county sits on the U.S.-Mexico border.
“We’re in over our head. We need help and Attorney General Ken Paxton and our governor to adopt an invasion under its definition in the constitution. Adopt that invasion and let’s move forward,” he said.
Kinney County has been one of the central locations of the state’s border security efforts, with officials arresting hundreds of immigrants for criminal trespass on private land to sidestep the local government’s inability to regulate migration.
Shahan was joined in his call by local officials from Terrell, another border county, and Uvalde, Goliad, Burnet, and Medina counties, which are not on the border. Shahan said Kinney County signed an official statement asking Abbott to declare an invasion, and other counties plan to do the same in the coming weeks.
The county officials blamed President Joe Biden for the high numbers of immigrants, saying his “open-border policies” laid out an “invitation” for migrants to come to the country.
In a statement on Wednesday, Abbott spokeswoman Renae Eze said: “all strategies remain on the table” to address the large number of migrants arriving at the Texas border as the state government continues to fill the void left by the federal government.
What does it mean to declare an invasion, and how feasible is it?
This Wednesday, July 6th, the Vice President of the National Border Patrol Council, Art Del Cueto, called on Texas Governor Greg Abbott to declare an “invasion” on the southern border.
“It’s pretty much a catch, and release is what’s happening. Everyone’s overwhelmed and somebody needs to do something about it,” he said.
Del Cueto said that declaring an invasion allows greater access to resources for communities affected by mass migration.
“You have to be able to deport some of these individuals. And just like I said, if the federal government isn’t doing something about it at this point, somebody needs to do something,” the Border Patrol official pointed out.
He further said the Border Patrol was overwhelmed and Texas “should have declared an invasion a long time ago” and concluded by stating that migrants will continue to cross because they are incentivized to do so under the current system.
“Many of these individuals are getting the message that all they have to do is cross, turn themselves over to an agent, claim some type of asylum, and they’ll be released in the United States. There is no consequence for their actions.”
However, legal experts assure it is not feasible to declare a state of invasion to deport illegal immigrants because it is the federal government’s responsibility alone. Governors such as Ducey (Arizona) and Abbott (Texas) expressed concern in April that such a move could expose state law enforcement to federal prosecution.
Declaring a state of invasion would give governors war powers to order police or the Arizona National Guard to deport illegal migrants themselves, without the need to wait for immigration authorities.
Several House Republicans have already announced that they support the proposed measure of Texas counties to declare the situation on the southern border as an “invasion.”
“It’s a sad day when local leaders have to effectively declare themselves a Sanctuary County for the law-abiding citizen,” Rep. Jodey Arrington highlighted, in contrast to cities that protect undocumented immigrants and do not cooperate with federal immigration agents.
“That’s the new reality under a derelict President who has ceded control of our sovereign border to narco-terrorist cartels and abandoned the American people,” he added.
Last year, Arrington introduced a resolution affirming states’ rights to defend themselves against drug cartels operating across the border.
Rep. Jim Banks, head of the Republican Study Committee, had supported that resolution and said counties had “no other choice” than to take action themselves due to a lack of movement from the federal government.
Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, also asserted that “we are dealing with an invasion.” Likewise, the official House Republican Twitter account tweeted, “President Biden’s open-borders policies have incentivized an invasion.”
The call to invoke both the U.S. and Texas Constitutions to declare an invasion as a means to crack down on immigration is based on a theory by Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich. He said the state’s governor, Doug Ducey, has a solid legal basis for invoking war powers to send the State National Guard to its border to stop an “invasion” by drug cartels and criminal gangs.
Texas in state of emergency over illegal immigration
May reached alarming figures regarding immigrant detentions along the U.S.-Mexico border. According to the latest monthly Customs and Border Patrol statistics, 239 216 apprehensions were recorded in May.
The figure shows the highest number of migrant encounters recorded in a month. The apprehensions in FY 2022 has already reached more than 1.7 million.
Sabrina Martín Rondon is a Venezuelan journalist. Her source is politics and economics. She is a specialist in corporate communications and is committed to the task of dismantling the supposed benefits of socialism // Sabrina Martín Rondon es periodista venezolana. Su fuente es la política y economía. Es especialista en comunicaciones corporativas y se ha comprometido con la tarea de desmontar las supuestas bondades del socialismo