Gov. Governor

Abbott released a statement Tuesday saying that he invoked the Invasion Clauses in the U.S. and Texas Constitutions to fully authorize Texas’s use of unprecedented measures to protect the state from an invasion. “I’m using this constitutional authority, and other authorizations & Executive orders to keep our country & state safe.”

Article 1 Section 10 and Article 4 Section 4 of the Constitution both state self-defense clauses. If the federal government fails in its duty to protect a state the governor can take appropriate action to help the state.

Abbott’s declaration came one week after he was elected to a third four year term as governor. Ex-Trump administration officials had been asking the governors in Texas and Arizona to declare an “invasion” so that they could justify taking more aggressive steps to stop illegal immigration.

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“We are referring to a war power. Although it may sound shocking, we are not talking about planes and tanks. In a radio interview, Ken Cuccinelli, a senior associate at conservative nonprofit Center for Renewing America said that we are literally talking about state officials doing exactly the same thing as federal officials with Title 42.” Cuccinelli was talking about the pandemic policy of public health that allows U.S. border officers to immediately turn away illegal immigrants rather than releasing them into America.

Cuccinelli stated that you simply grab illegal immigrants, take their fingerprints, and then you transfer them across the border.

Arizona and other states that had witnessed a large number of illegal border crossings by Mexican men in the 1990s sued the federal government claiming it was an invasion. It was not a violation of the standard, as an invasion must be part of foreign policy or defense.

“However these decisions did not address current violence and smuggling transnational cartels or gangs,” Arizona Attorney-General Mark Brnovich stated in support of the invasion clause. Arizona has not declared an invasion, although Kari Lake, a Republican candidate for governor, had promised to do so if she wins.

Abbott stated that declaring war and having the state enforce federal immigration laws in Mexico by sending illegal immigrants there might create a “revolving doors” at the border where people keep trying to get in because there is no consequence.

He’s managed Operation Lone Star, and kept your National Guard running for a show. He understands it doesn’t work,” Cuccinelli said, adding that federal courts could be used to help the state. If you are the federal government and sue Texas for it, they must prove that there was no invasion. They have the burden of proof since they are the plaintiff in the case. It’s not easy to prove that today with the border state. It is impossible, I think.

Abbott didn’t disclose Tuesday what Abbott’s state’s next move would be in the wake of the invasion invocation. He gave a list of bullet points that the state has undertaken over the past year. These included sending Texas National Guard and Texas State troopers to the border, returning illegal immigrants to ports for expulsion, and building a wall along the border — although only a few miles have been built in that time.