Texas Inviting Federalization of Guard
with Park Occupation and Blockades
Capitol Inside January 12, 2024
Governor Greg Abbott is daring President Joe Biden to shut the failed Texas border mission down once and for all with the state's occupation of a city park in Eagle Pass where federal agents have been blocked from doing their jobs at the Rio Grande.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security lodged a complaint against the state in the Supreme Court on Friday on the interference that the Border Patrol has encountered in the execution of federal responsibilities at Shelby Park
Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar outlined the allegations in a 20-page "supplemental memorandum" to the Department of Justice case that revolves on the removal of concertina wire that the state has strung along the river there and other selective areas.
An appeals court issued an injunction last month that prevented the Border Patrol from clearing out razor wire coils that have impeded its agents from carrying out their duties at the river that separates Texas from Mexico. The charges in the new DOJ addendum are based on an account that Robert Danley provided as the lead field coordinator for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
"On January 11, 2024, I spoke with the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS)," Danley said. "The Regional Director of the Texas DPS advised me that it is the position of the State of Texas, through the National Guard, that it will not allow Border Patrol or DOD personnel who support Border Patrol into the approximately 2.5-mile stretch along the national border near Shelby Park in any operational capacity. I was further advised that Texas does not want Border Patrol to be able to arrest, process, or transport migrants out of the identified area."
Prelogar said the state's "new actions" represent "an escalation of the State’s measures to block Border Patrol’s ability to patrol or even to surveil the border and be in a position to respond to emergencies" that are an official exception to the current injunction that the DOJ wants the high court to overturn.
The Biden administration confirmed in the filing today that the Texas National Guard deployed armed soldiers and vehicles for the sake of blocking access and entrances to Shelby Park. The Border Patrol had used the area as a staging ground for processing migrants and determining which would stay.
The war games that Abbott forces are staging there now appear to be the latest attempt to distract from the fact that Operation Lone Star hasn't forced a single migrant to return to Mexico after three years in operation with billions of dollars in outlays from the Republican-controlled Legislature. Abbott signed a bill into law late last year that's designed the initiative's most telling statistic off zero by allowing police to arrest migrants for illegal entry with deportation or jail as options. The law will likely be thrown out in the Supreme Court as blatant violation of federal law that supersedes state mandates.
But Abbott could be setting the stage for a standoff in the same league with the crisis that Democrat Orval Faubus triggered in 1957 when he used the Arkansas National Guard in his role as the governor to block Black students from entering Little Rock High School under a federal desegregation order.
The Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower responded by federalizing the Guard in Arkansas for the purpose of protecting the Black students and ensuring their entrance into the school. Abbott is angling to play the martyr role if Biden takes a playbook from Ike and nationalizes the National Guard here to prevent a takeover by the state of Texas at the Rio Grande.
more to come ...
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) tells Dana Loesch the "only thing we're not doing is shooting people" crossing the border because "the Biden Administration would charge us with murder." pic.twitter.com/8rDmdW9AUC
