Republicans are coming together, from former President Donald Trump to the House GOP, to back Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R-TX) capacity to militarize the Texas National Guard in defiance of the Biden administration, while Democrats such as Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) called on the president to federalize the forces.
After the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 on Monday to grant the Biden administration’s request to vacate a federal appeals court’s injunction, allowing border agents to remove concertina wire Texas installed along the Rio Grande, Abbott told the state’s National Guard to hold the line. The court’s ruling came one week after federal officials told Texas officers to leave Shelby Park and let Border Patrol access Eagle Pass.
Who are the Democrats calling on Biden to use the National Guard?
Several Democrats with ties to the border state are putting pressure on President Joe Biden to take control of the Texas National Guard if Abbott continues to reject the Supreme Court’s orders to allow federal officers to remove razor-wire barriers.
“Governor Greg Abbott is using the Texas National Guard to obstruct and create chaos at the border. If Abbott is defying yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling, @POTUS needs to establish sole federal control of the Texas National Guard now,” Castro wrote in a Tuesday post on X.
Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX) said he agreed with Castro in a six-part post on X. “Abbott is following the Donald Trump playbook: make immigration harder and more dangerous, so asylum seekers are pushed into the hands of cartels and the system remains broken.”
Former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke, who ran an unsuccessful Democratic presidential campaign in 2020 and later endorsed Biden, encouraged the president to follow what President Dwight D. Eisenhower did at Little Rock Central High School in 1957.
“Abbott is using the Texas Guard to defy a Supreme Court ruling. 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,” O’Rourke said on X.
Other Democrats are condemning Biden’s handling of the border crisis. Rep. Colin Allred (D-TX), who is vying to unseat Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), was one of over a dozen Democrats who voted for a GOP-led resolution denouncing the president’s immigration and border security response. However, Allred said Abbott was “dead wrong” in saying he’ll defy the Supreme Court and pushed for “federal action.”
“The governor is dead wrong,” Allred said, per Houston Public Media. “This a federal province, this issue, the issue of immigration, and we need to have federal action. But we’re not going to go back to the days of trying to nullify laws or in any way indicate that Texas is going to somehow separate itself from the rest of the United States. We are governed by a Constitution.”
Who are the Republicans backing Abbott‘s stance?
Trump used the situation in Texas to blast Biden, his likely 2024 general election rival, and show his support for Abbott.
“When I was President, we had the most secure Border in History. Joe Biden has surrendered our Border, and is aiding and abetting a massive Invasion of millions of Illegal Migrants into the United States,” Trump wrote Thursday on Truth Social. “Instead of fighting to protect our Country from this onslaught, Biden is, unbelievably, fighting to tie the hands of Governor Abbott and the State of Texas, so that the Invasion continues unchecked.”
Abbott already invoked the invasion clause of the Constitution in November, which states the federal government “shall guarantee every state in this Union a republican form of government and shall protect each of them against invasion.” The Texas governor reupped that declaration on Wednesday.
“In the face of this National Security, Public Safety, and Public Health Catastrophe, Texas has rightly invoked the Invasion Clause of the Constitution, and must be given full support to repel the Invasion,” Trump said.
On Thursday, the Republican Governors Association issued a letter supporting Abbott and Texas’s “constitutional right to self-defense” at the southern border.
Twenty-five governors stood with Abbott, writing “in part because the Biden Administration is refusing to enforce immigration laws already on the books and is illegally allowing mass parole across America of migrants who entered our country illegally.”
Who is taking it a step further?
Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD), who has been floated as a pick for Trump’s vice president, offered to drive razor wire to Abbott during the state’s standoff with Biden.
“Gov. Abbott has done the exact right thing,” Noem said Thursday on Fox News. “And I’ll drive him more razor wire from South Dakota if I have to for him to do his job.”
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“The inhumanity of the Biden policies is destroying America, and I’d never thought in my life that I could see a country change as fast as it has,” Noem added.
“So it is time that we stand shoulder to shoulder, and we stand up now to make sure we protect the future of this country.”
