The border war that Texas and its governor, Greg Abbott, have been fighting for years has entered a new phase. Yesterday, Abbott–in his words–“invoked the Invasion Clauses of the U.S. & Texas Constitutions to fully authorize Texas to take unprecedented measures to defend our state against an invasion.”
Article IV, Section 4 of the United States Constitution states: “The United States shall protect [each state] against invasion. . . .”
And Article 4, Section 7 of the Texas Constitution affirms: The governor “shall have power to call forth the militia to execute the laws of the State, to suppress insurrections, and to repel invasions.”
Breitbart News summarizes the steps Abbott and Texas now plan to take:
- “Deploy the National Guard to safeguard the border, and to repel and turn back immigrants trying to cross the border illegally
- Deploy the Texas Dept. of Public Safety (DPS) to arrest and return immigrants to the border who crossed illegally, and to arrest illegal immigrants for criminal activity;
- Build a wall in multiple counties on the border;
- Deploy gun boats;
- Designate Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations;
- Enter into a compact with other states to secure the border;
- Enter into agreements with foreign powers to enhance border security;
- Provide resources for border counties to increase their efforts to respond to the ‘border invasion.'”
In Fiscal Year 2022, which ended in September, 1.26 million migrant apprehensions–or two-thirds of the total–occurred in Texas.
For more, see Breitbart News.