Texas Gov. Greg Abbott invokes secession, earns praise from California GOP lawmaker
Andrew Sheeler
Mon, January 29, 2024 at 6:55 AM CST·6 min read
Link:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/texas-gov-greg-abbott-invokes-125500520.html
Sara Nevis/
snevis@sacbee.com
TEXAS GOV INVOKES SECESSION IN STATEMENT. CALIFORNIA LAWMAKER SHOWS SUPPORT
The Civil War ended 159 years ago, but the language used by the secessionists who started it lives on today, most recently in a statement from Republican Texas Gov.
Greg Abbott.
In a statement issued last week, Abbott said that “the federal government has broken the compact between the United States and the states” and announced that he was deploying the
Texas National Guard and other state public safety personnel to “secure the Texas border.”
It’s the word “compact” that draws concern from some, as that is how seven of the 11 seceding states (including Texas) referred to the
Constitution in their ordinances of secession, according to Civil War historian
Stephen West on Bluesky.
It wasn’t just West that noticed that.
The Hill’s
Nick Robertson wrote about Abbott’s language choice as well, in an article discussing how GOP governors were rallying around him.
“The so-called ‘compact theory’ is a rejected idea of state supremacy used to justify the secession of Confederate states during the Civil War. The
Supreme Court repeatedly shot down the legal theory in the early years of the United States, when it was first proposed to nullify federal legislation during former President
John Adams’s time in office,” Robertson wrote.
It’s not just words and theory, though.
Abbott has defied a Supreme Court ruling allowing federal agents to cut down razor wire that Texas installed along part of the border. The governor refuses to allow the
U.S. Border Patrol access to it, saying that Texas constitutional authority is “the supreme law of the land and supersedes any federal statutes to the contrary,”
according to PBS.
Abbott’s showdown with the federal government has a supporter in California Assemblyman
Bill Essayli, R-Riverside.
Last week, he penned a letter to Democratic California Gov.
Gavin Newsom, asking Newsom to “make a public declaration of solidarity” with Abbott on this issue.
“As a border state, Californian has suffered substantial economic and societal harm because of the porous border. While I appreciate your efforts to crackdown on fentanyl smuggling by increasing the number of
California National Guard service members deployed to interdict drugs at U.S. ports of entry, more must be done to secure our southern border,” Essayli said in the letter.
Essayli spokesman
Shawn Lewis told The Bee in a statement that the assemblyman’s support for Texas’ actions “is rooted in the plain text” of the Constitution.
“This has nothing to do with any discredited political theories used by Southern Democrats who started the Civil War,” he said.
Newsom, who routinely slams Abbott’s policies, isn’t interested in Essayli’s request.
Governor spokeswoman
Erin Mellon said in a statement that California relies on a “comprehensive and humane approach” to the border in order to keep both Californians and migrants safer.
“We don’t play with people’s lives to score cheap political points, instead we work with our local partners to keep our border communities safe and to treat people with dignity who are fleeing unimaginable circumstances and seeking a better life,” Mellon said.
She pointed to Newsom’s call to
Congress to act to fix the immigration system, help secure the border and provide necessary support for local communities.
“Texas is moving in the opposite direction by obstructing the federal government from enforcing immigration laws“ so that Texas can gain politically, she said.
DRINK UP! SENATE BILL ALLOWS RESTAURANTS, BARS TO HAVE OUTDOOR DRINKING
In a bid to perk up business for California downtown bars and restaurants, Sen.
Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, has introduced a bill,
SB 969, to allow cities to designate temporary “entertainment zones,” where businesses within that zone would be authorized to sell alcoholic drinks.
Current law allows licensed vendors at downtown fairs and festivals to sell booze, but not the neighboring bars and restaurants. This bill aims to create parity, and provide some much-needed income for a sector still struggling to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Getting people back out in the streets is key to the economic recovery of cities across California,” Wiener said in a statement. “By creating Entertainment Zones, we’re giving people a reason to go back to areas where recovery has been slow while creating a vital new revenue stream for bars and restaurants.”
Wiener’s office cited research from the
University of Toronto that found that no California city has fully recovered the foot traffic they saw pre-COVID prior to 2020. San Jose comes close, at 96%, while Los Angeles is at 83%, Redding is 76% and San Francisco is 67%.
The bill has the backing of two big city mayors — San Francisco’s
London Breed and San Jose’s
Matt Mahan.
“In San Francisco we are bringing different strategies to create more dynamic neighborhoods, especially in areas that for too long have been focused on simply being a 9 to 5 destination,” Breed said in a statement.
Mahan said that downtown San Jose has recovered faster than other major California cities, and that SB 969 would provide a much-needed boost.
“When safely implemented, SB 969 would make it easier for local businesses to host block parties, wine walks and events that bring us all together to help drive the vibrant future of our downtown,” he said.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“So pathetically weak, this Republican Party, and the new speaker saying, ‘Oh yes sir, what else would you like us to do?’”
- California Gov. Gavin Newsom,
in an interview with MSNBC’s Alex Wagner, ripping Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, accusing them of capitulating to former President Donald Trump’s demands that congressional Republicans torpedo a border deal with President Joe Biden.
Best of The Bee:
- California’s leading climate regulator added performance metrics to a $200 million plan proposed by the nation’s largest public electric vehicle charging network Thursday. The move signaled a potential shift toward more accountability for publicly subsidized chargers, via Ari Plachta.
- Civil servants who work for the Employment Development Department are the latest California state workers to receive return-to-office orders in recent weeks, via Maya Miller.
- Vice President Kamala Harris returned to her native Northern California Thursday, telling state Democratic officials and donors that they’re in for a tough, tight race against former President Donald Trump, via Lindsey Holden and Jenavieve Hatch.
- The California Public Utilities Commission approved a $45 million fine Thursday against Pacific Gas & Electric Co. for the Dixie Fire, the second-largest wildfire in state history that scorched nearly 1 million acres in 2021 and gutted more than 1,300 structures, via Ishani Desai.
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Joe Biden and Greg Abbott’s Fight Over the Texas Border, Explained
Elias Ferenczy
Wed, January 31, 2024 at 1:43 AM CST·6 min read
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection has witnessed
over 6 million migrants entering the United States from the southern border under the Biden administration, and a large percentage of them are coming through Texas.
In response, the state’s Republican governor,
Greg Abbott
Get info without
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, has taken matters into his own hands. In March 2021, he launched
Operation Lone Star, a multi-faceted mission to stop illegal immigration along the Texas border. Now, President
Joe Biden and his administration
argue barriers the state has erected along the border as part of Operation Lone Star infringe on federal authority. Enforcing border regulation typically falls on federal authorities.
The Biden administration has accused Abbott of
dehumanizing immigrants and
making it harder for federal Border Patrol agents to do their jobs. Abbott
claims Biden isn’t doing
his job to protect the southern border from foreign “invasion,” and that while constitutional authority gives him the right to maintain the barriers, Biden’s claim over national border authority rests on historic precedent.
The fight has included standoffs at the border and tit-for-tat legal filings.
What have legal fights been over?
Last July Abbott
installed a 1,000-foot floating barrier in the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass, Texas, prompting a federal
lawsuit from the Biden administration. The lawsuit claimed Abbott installed the barrier without necessary federal authorization. Abbott later
stated, however, that the barriers directed migrants to appropriate border entry points and prevented the illegal transfer of drugs, weapons, and people into the country. In September, U.S. District Judge David A. Ezra
ruled that Texas must remove the floating barrier.
Rather than remove the barrier, Texas immediately appealed to 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which
affirmed the lower court’s ruling and ordered Texas to remove the floating barrier. The battle against Operation Lone Star, however, continued on other fronts.
In October, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton
sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in district court and accused Border Patrol agents of cutting, damaging, and destroying a razor wire fence Texas had established to secure the border and prevent illegal immigration. While Paxton described the removal in his lawsuit as “without any justification,” the Biden administration
countered that the wire impeded Border Patrol agents from safely performing their duties.
The district court granted Paxton an
emergency restraining order to stop federal agents from destroying the wire. On December 19, a 5th Circuit judge issued the state of Texas an
injunction to prevent federal agents from interfering with the wire fence while the case was pending. This injunction did, however, allow an exception for cases constituting medical emergencies.
On January 2, DHS filed an
emergency application to the U.S. Supreme Court requesting it freeze the 5th Circuit’s injunction. DHS argued that newly erected barriers prevented agents from performing their jobs by blocking their access to Shelby Park, a city park in Eagle Pass. A border patrol chief patrol agent, Robert Danley,
stated that without access to a certain boat ramp in Shelby Park, federal agents could not respond to distressed migrants in the area.
“Texas has the legal authority to control ingress into any geographic location in the state of Texas,” Abbott said at a news conference on Friday, January 12.
Later that day, a woman and her two children
drowned near the boat ramp Danley described. Three days later, DHS
filed a memorandum to the Supreme Court stating that if the Border Patrol had retained its original access to the park, its agents may have been able to rescue the three drowning migrants. The White House also
blamed Texas officials for the deaths. Paxton
called the loss of life in the Rio Grande tragic, stated that the fencing was established to
prevent loss of life in the area, and claimed that the fence deters illegal crossing by routing migrants to safe and lawful entry ports.
On January 14, the Texas Military Department released a
statement following its review of the circumstances and concluded that the migrants had already drowned by the time Border Patrol agents requested access to the site of the tragedy.
In a 5-4 vote on January 22, the Supreme Court used a shadow docket—a procedure which can be employed in cases requiring immediate action—to lift the 5th Circuit’s injunction which had blocked border patrol agents from destroying the barriers. The move allowed federal agents to remove state-erected barriers.
The 5th Circuit will hear arguments on February 7 regarding whether Border Patrol agents violated Texas law by cutting the razor-wire barrier, one of the key claims of Paxton’s lawsuit against DHS.
What’s next?
Texas Republican Rep. Chip Roy and others say Gov. Abbott has a constitutional obligation to defy the Supreme Court’s ruling. Roy
posted on X, “This opinion is unconscionable and Texas should ignore it on behalf of the [Border Patrol] agents who will be put in a worse position by the opinion and the Biden administration’s policies.”
In fact, the one-page Supreme Court
order does not prohibit the erection of additional barriers, but simply allows Border Patrol agents to destroy barriers when necessary.
Still, some Democrats have called on Biden to seize the Texas National Guard. “Abbott is using the Texas Guard to defy a Supreme Court ruling,” former Rep. Beto O’Rourke
wrote on January 24. “When Gov. Faubus did this in 1957, Eisenhower federalized the Arkansas Guard to ensure compliance with the law. Biden must follow this example of bold, decisive leadership to end this crisis before it gets worse.”
For now, a senior Customs and Border Protection official
told Fox News on Friday that the Border Patrol is not planning to remove the razor wire except in emergencies. “If we need to access an area for emergency response, we will do so.”
In addition to the fencing dispute, on January 3 DHS
sued Abbott on behalf of the state of Texas for recently signing a
bill making illegal border crossings a state crime punishable by deportation, prosecution, or imprisonment. The suit argues that the bill is preempted by federal law, violates the Constitution, and should be declared invalid.
“Under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution and long standing Supreme Court precedent, states cannot adopt immigration laws that interfere with the framework enacted by Congress.” Gupta called the bill “clearly unconstitutional,” Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta
stated.
Texas’ arguments may ultimately rest on the classification of the migrant crossings as an “invasion.” The upcoming court decision largely depends on the judges’ opinion of Abbott’s classification of the border situation as an “invasion.” The judges’ agreement with his terminology would make the governor more likely to win his case, and would also strengthen Paxton’s argument for
his lawsuit.
The Supreme Court has never defined the word “invade.” However, under the Constitution, “invasion” has historically
been interpreted to involve entry
plus enmity–meaning illegal entry alone is insufficient to constitute an “invasion.”
Read more at The Dispatch
The Dispatch is a new digital media company providing engaged citizens with fact-based reporting and commentary, informed by conservative principles. Sign up for free.
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Texas Gov. Abbott sends stark message to sanctuary cities as migrant crisis continues
Brandon Gillespie, Adam Shaw
Mon, January 29, 2024 at 2:03 PM CST·2 min read
Republican Texas Gov.
Greg Abbott sent a stark message to sanctuary cities on Monday, vowing his state's transportation of migrants to their areas would continue until the federal government takes action on the worsening border crisis.
"Texas has transported over 102,000 migrants to sanctuary cities. Overwhelmed Texas border towns should not bear the brunt of Biden’s open border policies. Our transportation mission will continue until Biden secures the border," Abbott wrote in a post on X.
Abbott's promise comes amid his feud with the
Biden administration over enforcement of the border, and whether Texas has the authority to defend itself from the waves of migrants overwhelming law enforcement and immigration officials.
WHITE HOUSE DEMANDS SPEAKER JOHNSON GIVE BIDEN ‘AUTHORITY AND FUNDING’ TO ‘SECURE THE BORDER’
The two sides have been feuding since 2021 when the migrant crisis escalated and Texas launched
Operation Lone Star to surge resources to the border.
The administration recently sued over an anti-illegal immigration law that allows state and local law enforcement to arrest illegal immigrants. It has also sued over the state’s setting up of buoys in the Rio Grande. The administration says
immigration enforcement is up to the federal government and Texas is interfering.
READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP
Last week, the
Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision on an emergency appeal to temporarily overturn a lower court’s injunction that banned the federal government from cutting razor fencing Texas had installed along the border near Eagle Pass while litigation continues.
TEXAS GOVERNOR DOING ‘EXACTLY RIGHT THING’ AMID CONSTITUTIONAL BATTLE OVER BORDER ENFORCEMENT: LEGAL EXPERTS
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott vowed to continue sending migrants to sanctuary cities until the Biden administration secures the border.
Following the ruling, Abbott declared his constitutional authority to reserve the right of his state to self-defense against an invasion, adding that the executive branch had broken its constitutional pact with the states by failing to enforce federal immigration laws.
Former President Donald Trump on Thursday gave his backing to Abbott amid the latter’s feud with the Biden administration —
urging states to send their National Guards to the border and promising to work "hand in hand" with the state to combat the "invasion" if he is inaugurated again in January 2025.
DID BIDEN INTENTIONALLY CAUSE THE BORDER CRISIS?
Abbott has also picked up the support of more than two dozen Republican states who have publicly expressed their support for the state. Meanwhile,
some Democrats have urged the Biden administration to seize control of the National Guard.
Fox News' Brianna Herlihy contributed to this report.
Original article source: Texas Gov. Abbott sends stark message to sanctuary cities as migrant crisis continues
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Biden is wrong, Texas has every right to 'defend against invasion,' state AGs tell White House
Brianna Herlihy
Mon, January 29, 2024 at 11:18 AM CST·4 min read
FIRST ON FOX - A group of 26 attorneys general are defending Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s right to defend his state "against invasion" amid a
bitter border battle between Texas and President Biden.
Last week, Abbott said he would assert Article 1 powers to defend against an "invasion" at the border while the Biden administration refuses to enforce federal immigration laws. His announcement sparked a controversy that will play out in court about what legal grounds Abbott can claim to support his decision.
In a letter obtained by Fox News Digital, 26 Republican attorneys general tell President Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas that they support the Lone Star State, saying that "millions of people
illegally coming into Texas as part of a coordinated assault on our border is an invasion" and that "states must be able to defend themselves from invasion."
The escalating crisis at the Texas-Mexico border came to a head last week after the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to temporarily overturn a lower court’s injunction that banned the federal government from cutting razor fencing Texas had installed along the border near Eagle Pass while litigation continues.
TEXAS GOVERNOR DOING 'EXACTLY RIGHT THING' AMID CONSTITUTIONAL BATTLE OVER BORDER ENFORCEMENT: LEGAL EXPERTS
Abbott said that though the Supreme Court said the Biden administration could continue cutting the fencing, the order does not prevent him from continuing to construct the razor wire fencing – which is what he promised to do despite sharp criticism from the White House.
READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP
In their letter, the AGs told the White House, "As lawyers yourselves, you must know that reports that Texas is ignoring or 'defying' the Supreme Court are wrong, either misunderstanding or deliberately misstating the law."
"The Supreme Court’s order did not tell Texas that it could or could not do anything. Texas should be applauded for continuing to try to protect the border despite the federal government now, again, being able to try to destroy the barriers Texas builds," the AGs note.
The AGs added that "states must be able to defend themselves from invasion," and that no one seriously contests that point.
BORDER BATTLE LINES: DEMS CALL ON BIDEN TO SEIZE CONTROL OF TEXAS NATIONAL GUARD, AS GOP ALLIES BACK ABBOTT
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott
Article I, section 10, clause 3 lays out the circumstances that states may act to defend themselves in a crisis, the AGs wrote.
Article 1, Section 10, which Abbott says was "triggered" by Biden's inaction at the border, states, "No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay."
"Justice Scalia said it best in his dissent in Arizona v. United States: States have a ‘sovereign interest in protecting their borders,’" they said, referencing
a 2012 Supreme Court case.
"Right now cartels, terror groups, and other bad actors are taking advantage of the chaos by the border to orchestrate a mass influx of people. Gangs are using the flood of people to hide their ‘predator’ members as they enter the United States," they said.
"Millions of people illegally coming into Texas as part of a coordinated assault on our border is an invasion. No state, not even Texas, can handle such an influx of people. And no one—not Texas, not the United States—knows whether any person illegally crossing the border is engaging in additional criminal activity," they argued.
ABBOTT DECLARES TEXAS HAS 'RIGHT TO SELF-DEFENSE' FROM MIGRANT 'INVASION' AMID FEUD WITH BIDEN ADMIN
A U.S. Border Patrol agent watches over more than 2,000 migrants at a field processing center on Dec. 18, 2023 in Eagle Pass, Texas.
Attorneys General Brenna Bird of Iowa and Sean Reyes of Utah, who led the Monday letter, note that since Biden’s inauguration day in 2021, more than 6 million illegal immigrants have crossed the southern border. "That is effectively adding the population of Iowa and Utah to our country in less than three years," they said.
"The invasion on our southern border has made every state a border state," Bird told Fox News Digital in a statement.
"If the Biden Administration won’t do its job to secure our border and keep Americans safe, it should step aside to let the States do the job for them," she said.
Texas’ fight is our fight," Attorney General Reyes told Fox News Digital. "And if the White House will not defend our laws and innocent citizens, states have the authority under the U.S. Constitution to defend themselves," he said.
Original article source: Biden is wrong, Texas has every right to 'defend against invasion,' state AGs tell White House
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Half of US governors side with Texas in border standoff with Biden admin
FOX News Videos
Mon, January 29, 2024 at 11:03 AM CST
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) says there is an 'invasion' occurring at the southern border and applauds Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
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Opinion
Opinion: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is defying a U.S. Supreme Court order. That's frightening
Erwin Chemerinsky
Mon, January 29, 2024 at 4:53 PM CST·4 min read
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has disregarded the federal government's broad authority over immigration and the border. (David J. Phillip / Associated Press)
Texas’ continuing dispute with the federal government over immigration enforcement goes to the very heart of our constitutional system. Gov. Greg Abbott, and those who are cheering him on, are challenging not only federal authority but also the power of the Supreme Court and ultimately the supremacy of the Constitution itself.
The dispute arose because Texas installed
razor wire fencing along parts of the Rio Grande, among other unilateral measures at the U.S.-Mexico border. Texas officials say they did so to deter an influx of people crossing the border, many of whom are seeking asylum. The question is whether the federal government can remove the fence given its power over the border and immigration.
A panel of the conservative 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals prohibited the federal government from removing the razor wire except for medical emergencies. Last week, however,
in a 5-4 order without an opinion, the Supreme Court granted the U.S. solicitor general’s request that border agents be allowed to remove the razor wire.
Read more: Litman: Texas' defiance of federal rule echoes Southern segregationists — with a key difference
That should have put the matter to rest for the time being. But the Texas National Guard and state troopers continued to put up concertina wire and block federal agents from accessing part of the border. On Wednesday, the
Republican governor publicly challenged the Supreme Court’s ruling, vowing to “
hold the line.” Abbott said Texas is under “invasion” and that the state’s right to defend itself “is the supreme law of the land and
supersedes any federal statutes to the contrary.”
The
Republican Governors Assn. issued a statement Thursday backing Abbott “in utilizing every tool and strategy, including razor wire fences, to secure the border.” Former President Trump has also defended Abbott and called on other states to
send their national guards to support Texas.
This is frightening and just wrong as a matter of law. To begin with, Article VI of the Constitution makes the federal government supreme when it is acting within its authority, deeming any contrary state policies preempted. And the Supreme Court has long held that the federal government has broad powers over immigration and the borders.
Read more: Granderson: Texans don't hate migrants. Why do they elect such a cruel governor?
The court has frequently found that state laws seeking to regulate immigration are preempted by federal law. In the 2012 case
Arizona vs. United States, for example, the court emphatically struck down an Arizona law that sought to crack down on the border and undocumented people.
Moreover, since the earliest days of the country, it’s been a fundamental principle of constitutional law that states cannot interfere with the operation of the federal government, including federal law enforcement. In fact, this was precisely the argument the Trump administration made against cities that resisted cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Abbott’s calling immigration an “invasion” doesn’t change anything. The supremacy of federal law and the federal government doesn’t cease even if there is an invasion.
While the Constitution says in
Article I, Section 10, that no state shall “engage in war, unless actually invaded,” the provision was meant to allow states to respond to enemy troops at a time when the federal government could be slow to respond because of the nature of communications and transportation. Nothing in the clause implies that the states may violate federal law or impede the federal government.
Nor does a state have the power to disregard or disobey a U.S. Supreme Court order. But that is what Abbott is doing in directing the Texas National Guard to prevent federal agents from taking down the razor wire. And it is distressing to see Republican governors openly cheering his lawlessness.
This of course is not the first time a state tried to disregard federal law. In the 1950s, Southern governors attempted to block the court-ordered desegregation of schools.
One of the most famous instances involved Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus, who deployed the state’s National Guard to prevent Black students from attending Little Rock Central High School. The Supreme Court responded forcefully in
Cooper vs. Aaron, holding that states have no right to disobey federal court orders in an opinion signed by all nine justices. President Eisenhower sent the federal National Guard to enforce the desegregation of the Little Rock schools.
The principle upheld then dates to the dawn of the republic and continues to apply today. If states can obstruct the federal government and ignore Supreme Court orders, the Constitution is rendered meaningless. Texas’ governor is violating the Constitution, and the stakes of this standoff are great.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom awaits the arrival of President Joe Biden at San Francisco International Airport, on Nov. 14, 2023. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
