Texas Spent Billions on Border Security. It's Not Working

[douglas9]

Texas has spent two years and billions of dollars on the most aggressive attempt by any state to take control over federal border security. There’s no indication it has worked.

Operation Lone Star, a top priority of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, has inundated the U.S.-Mexico border with thousands of Texas state troopers and National Guardsmen, started work on a state-controlled border wall and built a new skeleton justice system with its own courts, judges and jails to lodge misdemeanor state trespassing charges against migrants.

The program is an explicit challenge to the national government, which by law controls international borders and immigration enforcement.

This week, the program was in the public eye for reports of inhumane treatment of migrants. In a July 3 email, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, a trooper and medic raised concerns to his superiors, saying troopers and Guard members on the operation were instructed to push a nursing mother back into the river, to deny water to migrants even in extreme heat and to block a 4-year-old who was trying to cross coils of razor wire, from reaching shore. The email, earlier reported by the Houston Chronicle, detailed instances of injury that included a pregnant woman entangled in the wire having a miscarriage and numerous severe lacerations.


https://www.wsj.com/articles/texas-billion-dollar-border-security-migration-isn-t-paying-off-16ed598d?mod=djemalertNEWS

[Walleye]

1. He has succeeded in being extremely offensive, I'm starting to believe that is their only goal

[pwb]

2. They only want to pass through Texas.

Why would they want to stay there when nice people are just up north a bit?

[walkingman]

3. The intent was getting all the Rethugs in Texas either re-elected or elected.

That is their only purpose. Make it harder to vote, attack the urban areas, attack all things environmental, make a larger police state, and talk about how much you should love Texas has keep these bastards in power at all levels of government for over 30 years.

This right-wing ideology has become part of Texas culture - not sure if it will ever change? but I sure as hell hope so.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

4. DOJ says it will sue Texas over buoy wall barrier in Rio Grande

Greg needs to sued over this stupid idea

Link to tweet

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/doj-abbott-border-buoys-18253897.php

The Department of Justice is ready to sue Gov. Greg Abbott over the floating buoy barrier he deployed in the Rio Grande to block migrants from crossing the river from Mexico into Texas near Eagle Pass.

The DOJ sent Abbott a letter on Thursday warning that the state’s buoy barrier is unlawful.

“The State of Texas’s actions violate federal law, raise humanitarian concerns, present serious risks to public safety and the environment, and may interfere with the federal government’s ability to carry out its official duties,” the department wrote, according to a copy obtained by Hearst Newspapers.

Assistant Attorney General Todd Kimm and Jaime Esparza, United States Attorney for the Western District of Texas, go on to write that the wall of buoys violates the Rivers and Harbors Act, which prohibits the creation of any obstruction to the navigable capacity of waters of the United States. They further point out that Texas did not seek authorization from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to deploy the barrier, which is required by the law.

“This floating barrier poses a risk to navigation, as well as public safety, in the Rio Grande River, and it presents humanitarian concerns. Thus, we intend to seek appropriate legal remedies, which may include seeking injunctive relief requiring the removal of obstructions or other structures in the Rio Grande River,” the letter states.