Governor Abbott: Texas' Right to Self-defense 'Supersedes Any Federal Statutes to the Contrary'

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January 24, 2024

Governor Abbott said the writers of the Constitution knew the 'States should not be left to the mercy of a lawless president who does nothing to stop external threats'.

Via SCNR:

Texas Governor Gregg Abbott invoked America’s founding fathers while vowing to continue to secure Texas’ border in a new statement.

His message comes two days after the United States Supreme Court ruled the federal government could remove razor wire along the Rio Grande installed by the state to deter illegal immigration and drug trafficking as the Biden administration’s appeal makes its way through the court. Texas responded by installing more razor wire on Jan. 23.

Today, Texas National Guard is busy putting up more razor wire and barriers at Shelby Park in Eagle Pass Texas. pic.twitter.com/9zzgn8BYOk
— Charlotte Cuthbertson (@charlottecuthbo) January 23, 2024

“The federal government has broken the compact between the United States and the States,” wrote the Republican. “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.”

Abbott says Biden has “smashed records for illegal immigration” and “ignored Texas’s demand that he perform his constitutional duties.”

My statement on Texas’ constitutional right to self-defense. pic.twitter.com/seNFZdmujP
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) January 24, 2024

The governor continued:

President Joe Biden has violated his oath to faithfully execute immigration laws enacted by Congress. Instead of prosecuting immigrants for the federal crime of illegal entry, President Biden has sent his lawyers into federal courts to sue Texas for taking action to secure the border.

President Biden has instructed his agencies to ignore federal statutes that mandate the detention of illegal immigrants. The effect is to illegally allow their en masse parole into the United States.

By wasting taxpayer dollars to tear open Texas’s border security infrastructure, President Biden has enticed illegal immigrants from the 28 legal entry points along this State’s southern border – bridges where nobody drowns – and into the dangerous water of the Rio Grande.

The Biden administration has claimed that the razor wire inhibits Border Patrol agents from carrying out their responsibilities and from preventing “the development of deadly situations,” per CNN.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters during a briefing on Jan. 23 that the Biden administration was “certainly glad” the Supreme Court had permitted the federal government to remove the razor wire, which she called “ineffective.”

Approximately 6 million illegal immigrants have entered the United States during Biden’s three years in office.

According to the Federation for American Immigration Reform, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security had removed “just 2 percent of illegal aliens who did not show up to their immigration court hearings after establishing credible fear of persecution at the border” as of Aug. 31, 2023.

“As of Dec. 10, 2023, 1,323,264 illegal aliens with final orders of removal still remained in the U.S,” the organization added in its report.

Abbott formally invoked the Invasion Clauses of the U.S. and Texas Constitutions in November because of the increasing crisis at the Southern border in November. The move permitted the state to take more drastic steps to secure the border, including deploying the National Guard, turning back immigrants trying to cross illegally, designating Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, entering into an agreement with other states to secure the border, and providing resources for border counties to increase their efforts to respond to the border invasion.

Under the clause, the federal government is obligated to guarantee “every state in this Union a republican form of government and shall protect each of them against invasion,” per Fox 4 News.

“James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and 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,” declared Abbott on Jan. 24.

The governor said the Texas National Guard, the Texas Department of Public Safety, and the other Texas personnel are acting as part of “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.