Since Joe Biden took office as President of the United States, more than 6 million people have crossed the southern border illegally. According to a report from the House Committee on Homeland Security, this figure is based on data from the Department of Customs and Border Protection. In addition, it is known that around 1.7 million people have managed to escape from the authorities. Last fiscal year alone, the following groups tried to enter the country illegally: 169 individuals included on the suspected terrorism list, more than 35,000 individuals with sentences for various crimes, and almost 600 fully identified as gang members, including some from MS13.
Despite this and the numerous calls for help from border states, the Biden administration has decided to go against each and every one of the actions that Texas has taken to try to protect its border.
I spoke with the Lieutenant Governor of Texas, Dan Patrick, in the Voz Media studios and asked him about this pitched battle that the executive has waged against Texas.
“The Biden administration wants an open border. They don’t care about fentanyl killing Americans coming across the border. They don’t care about sex trafficking. They don’t care about children going into sex trafficking. They don’t care about women [that] are being raped crossing the border. They don’t care about American citizens that are killed by MS-13 gangs and other criminals across the border. They don’t care.”
Patrick points out that instead of protecting the border, the Biden administration is looking to fill the country with potential future voters for the Democratic Party.
“And their long goal is they want to see millions and millions of people come here illegally. They’re thinking the long game, 15, 20 years from now, they’ll have children, they’ll be old enough to vote, and they see this as their opportunity to take over the country with people who will come here illegally, that in their mind one day will become citizens. So they don’t want us to do our job. They don’t want their own border patrol to do their job. And so in Texas, we’re pushing back hard.”
One of Texas’ responses to record numbers of undocumented immigrants has been to place barbed wire along the border to prevent illegal entry. However, the Biden administration took legal action against Texas to remove the wire, and although a lower court ruling had previously voted against it, this week, the Supreme Court voted to allow the wire to be removed while the case is reviewed further.
- Are you surprised by the Supreme Court’s decision?
“Yes. Surprised, I’m disappointed and frustrated.”
Texas recently passed SB4, making it a state crime to enter Texas illegally and increasing penalties for human trafficking. Critics of the law say it is unconstitutional because the duty to protect the country’s borders falls to the executive branch. On this basis, the Biden administration sued the state of Texas; however, Lieutenant Governor Patrick said that the law was designed to defend Texas and was written with the expectation of being challenged in court.
“So 2012, Arizona passed a law that basically would give them permission to, you know, control the border. It failed in front of the Supreme Court. The law was weak, and the Supreme Court was more moderate then. I wrote the law with Governor Abbott, Senate Bill 4 that we passed at the end of the session, that we know will go to the Supreme Court, that says we can detain, we can arrest, we can imprison people coming here illegally. And we believe, I believe it’s a sound law, and I believe the Supreme Court will uphold it.”
- Do you think it will go into effect on March 5th?
“It will, it will. They’ll probably file a temporary injunction if they haven’t already to, to hold it from going into law. But our, when we passed it, and I spent a lot of hours working on that bill, I know it very well. We knew they were going to come after it immediately. And we welcome the challenge because we believe we’re right.”
Likewise, Governor Greg Abbott published a statement clarifying Texas’ right to defend its territory from invasion.
“James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and the other visionaries who wrote the U.S. Constitution foresaw that States should not be left to the mercy of a lawless president who does nothing to stop external threats like cartels smuggling millions of illegal immigrants across the border. That is why the Framers included both Article IV, § 4, which promises that the federal government ‘shall protect each [State] against invasion,’ and Article I, § 10, Clause 3, which acknowledges ‘the States’ sovereign interest in protecting their borders.’”
“The failure of the Biden Administration to fulfill the duties imposed by Article IV, § 4 has triggered Article I, § 10, Clause 3, which reserves to this State the right of self-defense. For these reasons, I have already declared an invasion under Article I, § 10, Clause 3 to invoke Texas’s constitutional authority to defend and protect itself. That authority is the supreme law of the land and supersedes any federal statutes to the contrary,” Abbott said in the statement.
This is not the first time Abbott has made headlines for his approach to fighting the crisis at the border. Texas has been heavily criticized for its actions, such as sending undocumented immigrants on buses to sanctuary cities like New York and Chicago. These cities used to promote illegal immigration and now they’re overwhelmed by the numbers arriving. I asked Lt. Governor Patrick if that was what Texas was looking for, to show that illegal immigration is unsustainable.
“Well, we wanted those Democrat mayors and governors to feel the pain that we’re feeling. You take a town like Del Rio, small population, the people crossing into their area over the years has been three, four, five times or more of their population or any of the small towns on the border. New York complains, they have 10, 12 million people, whatever they have in New York. They complain because they’ve gotten 15,000 or 20,000, and we’re being overrun,” said Patrick.
“So we thought, and this tells you the agenda behind Joe Biden, we thought that their pressure that they put on the president would say: ‘Hey, look, it’s one thing you want to battle with Texas fine, but don’t make me miserable. I’m a Democrat mayor. I supported you for president. I’m up there behind you waving the flag for you.’ And they are doing that now. And they’re doing it, and they have been, and Biden has turned his back on them,” he stated.
The lieutenant governor of Texas also commented that he would be in favor of immigration reform but that the illegal flow across the border must first be stopped.
“America supports legal immigration. Republicans are not anti-immigrant. We’re anti-people coming here illegally. Because we don’t know who’s coming in, and many of those are a danger to America.”
