There are now a pair of border crises coming front and center into the race for the White House.
The first is occurring hundreds of miles from either Mexico or Canada, in Washington D.C., where lawmakers recently learned their months-long efforts at reaching a compromise over new border security legislation may have been torpedoed by the 45th President, who continued to express his distaste for the unpublished bill’s rumored contents over the weekend and while also warning there is “now a 100% chance that there will be MAJOR TERROR ATTACKS IN THE USA.”
“A BAD BORDER DEAL IS FAR WORSE THAN NO BORDER DEAL,” former President Donald Trump wrote, deploying his typical all-caps emphasis. “OUR BORDER HAS BECOME A WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION — OUR DESTRUCTION!!!”
U.S. Sen. James Lankford, of Oklahoma, one of the key negotiators on the bill, seemed hopeful the deal can move forward despite the former president’s apparent opposition.
“I’m looking forward to President Trump having the opportunity to be able to read it like everybody else. There’s a lot of misinformation out there right now,” the Republican said Sunday on CBS News’ Face the Nation.
President Joe Biden said that if the bill were passed and signed, he would use the authority the new law grants him to close the border immediately.
“Two months ago, my team began to work with a bipartisan group of Senators to put together the toughest, smartest, fairest border security bill in history — the best one the nation has ever seen. It would finally provide the funding I requested early on and again in October to secure our borders,” Biden said at a Saturday evening campaign event in South Carolina.
“It would also give me, as President, the emergency authority to shut down the border until it can get back under control. If that bill were the law today, I’d shut down the border right now and fix it quickly,” he said.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, who last week acknowledged speaking with Trump about the border bill, and despite conservative lawmakers in the lower chamber demanding for months that Biden act to stop the rush of migrants at the southern border, said the bill is “dead on arrival in the House.” This comes after Trump, despite his warning of impending terrorists attacks, declared that the bill would be a political win for Team Biden in an election year.
“A Border Deal now would be another Gift to the Radical Left Democrats. They need it politically, but don’t care about our Border,” he wrote.
The second crisis is occurring at the actual border, where a dispute over who should secure a small slice of Texas and how to go about doing it continued to build towards conflict over the weekend, with the state’s governor vowing to keep installing razor wire barriers alongside Mexican territory with the support of nearly all of his Republican gubernatorial colleagues and in spite of a Supreme Court order to see the barriers removed.
All but one conservative state governor signed onto a letter at the end of last week backing Gov. Greg Abbot’s efforts to prevent the federal government from removing triple-stacked coils of Concertina wire, which Texas National Guardsmen have deployed along the edge of the U.S. border in Eagle Pass, Texas amidst record breaking migrant arrivals. Abbot has declared the influx of foreign nationals an “invasion” under Texas state law.
The Biden Administration, the letter from the governors claims, “has abdicated its constitutional compact duties to the states,” echoing language used in the lead up to the U.S. Civil War.
“We stand in solidarity with our fellow Governor, Greg Abbott, and the State of Texas in utilizing every tool and strategy, including razor wire fences, to secure the border. We do it 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,” the governors, including New Hampshire’s Gov. Chris Sununu, wrote. Republican Gov. Phil Scott, of Vermont, did not add his name to the letter.
Abbot’s response to the federal government was also praised by Trump during a Saturday campaign rally in Nevada, in which the leading contender for the Republican nomination urged the Lone Star state’s governor to stay the course.
“When I’m president, instead of trying to send Texas a restraining order, I will send them reinforcements,” Trump said. “Instead of fighting border states, I will use every resource tool and authority of the U.S. president to defend the United States of America from this horrible invasion that is taking place right now.”
Trump previously lauded Abbot’s hardline against the federal government’s efforts to take control of the border and the former president even went so far as to suggest other states should send National Guard troops there.
“We encourage all willing States to deploy their guards to Texas to prevent the entry of Illegals, and to remove them back across the Border. All Americans should support the common sense measures by Texas authorities to protect the Safety, Security, and Sovereignty of Texas, and of the American people,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social media platform.
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5 – 4 decision, ordered Texas to allow Border Patrol agents access to the border in order to cut and remove the wire barriers which the Biden Administration told the court were interfering with their job of conducting immigration and customs law enforcement.
Abbot remained defiant through the week.
“Texas will continue to exercise its constitutional right to protect and defend our southern border. In President Biden’s absence, we will hold the line to keep Texans—and Americans—safe,” he wrote Friday.
Herald wire services contributed.
Jacquelyn Martin/ The Associated Press
President Joe Biden speaks at St. John Baptist Church in Columbia, S.C. on Sunday. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
