Texas Governor Greg Abbott Defiant: Texas Has Constitutional Right to Self-Defense

Things on the southern border are bad, and they are getting worse. The Biden administration is enabling this, and at least one border-state governor has had enough. On Wednesday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued a statement putting the Biden administration on notice over illegal immigration.

Nobody with the sense of a stuffed armadillo can deny that the Biden administration’s border policies have been a calamity. A few points in Governor Abbott’s statement, though, merit some serious consideration, not just in light of the immigration problem but in the sense that there is a constitutional crisis in the offing. The governor writes:

The federal government has broken the compact between the United States and the States. The Executive Branch of the United States has a constitutional duty to enforce federal laws protecting States, including immigration laws on the books right now. President Biden has refused to enforce those laws and has even violated them. The result is that he has smashed records for illegal immigration.

Despite having been put on notice in a series of letters – one of which I delivered to him by hand – President Biden has ignored Texas’s demand that he perform his constitutional duties.

Note the language here; the governor is striking a defiant tone, not least of which is his deliberate use of the term “illegal immigration” rather than the squishy “migrants” or “undocumented immigrants.” It looks like Governor Abbott has had enough. He has a lot of company.

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