Yes, What’s Happening At Our Border Is An Invasion
Something interesting happened recently, as several Texas border counties joined together to declare that an invasion is in progress along the Rio Grande, and they’re asking Texas governor Greg Abbott to use state resources to get the border under control since the federal government won’t do it.
Multiple Texas counties on Tuesday will declare that the migrant crisis at the southern border is an “invasion,” Fox News has learned, a move that could lead to similar declarations across the state.
Kinney County Judge Tully Shahan is expected to announce the move at a news conference Tuesday afternoon, along with a number of other officials from other counties who will join him.
Kinney County Attorney Brent Smith told Fox News Digital that he believes approximately 12 to15 counties could end up having declared an invasion by the end of the month.
With migrant numbers hitting historic levels, and with more than 239,000 migrant encounters in May alone, there has been considerable talk in conservative circles about the merits of declaring the crisis an “invasion” — which could open up a number of potential legal avenues for states.
Former Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought and former acting deputy DHS Secretary Ken Cuccinelli, both now at the Center for Renewing America have urged governors to make the declarations and use war powers to order Arizona’s police or National Guard to remove illegal immigrants to Mexico themselves.
They have pointed to language in Article I of the Constitution, which allows for States to “engage in War” when it has been “actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay” without the approval of Congress. They also note Article IV says the U.S. “shall protect each [state] against invasion.”
The idea scored a major win in February, when Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich issued a legal opinion declaring the crisis an invasion, arguing that the definition of “invasion” contained under the U.S. Constitution is not limited to hostile foreign states, and can include “hostile non-state actors.”
That legal opinion by Arizona’s Attorney General Mark Brnovich was an interesting item here as well. Brnovich noted that all of the elements of an invasion as commonly understood apply to what’s happening at our border…
This has been met with guffaws on the Left, as the counter to the argument goes that by “invasion” you’re talking about military action by hostile armies.
And yes, we are not under invasion by the Mexican or Honduran Army.
But with two million people coming across that border in the past year and change, and with the border mostly under the control of drug cartels which do operate de facto armies – equipped with military-grade weapons and made up of trained killers, you start to recognize that while this might not look like military action the effect isn’t dissimilar.
Arizona governor Doug Ducey blew off Brnovich’s legal opinion and exhortation earlier this year. But when Arizona passed a law requiring proof of citizenship in order to vote – it’s federal law that you have to be a U.S. citizen to vote in federal elections, after all, and courts in New York have thrown out, on constitutional grounds, attempts in that state to grant the franchise in state and local elections to non-citizens – the Biden Justice Department sued the state of Arizona. That’s a signal to Ducey that giving deference to the federal government on the question of migrants and border security simply isn’t going to work.
There are certainly casualties of the invasion. The migrants those cartels transport over the border tend to drop dead with a disturbing frequency, as that awful story of the tractor trailer abandoned in San Antonio with over 60 migrants inside, more than 50 of whom perished, serves as an example. But the cartels are using migrants as mules to transport a flood of illicit and highly dangerous drugs over the border – including enough Chinese-made fentanyl to kill everyone in America multiple times over.
Baltimore Ravens defensive end Jaylon Ferguson, who died last week, is a perfect example of such a casualty. Ferguson thought he was snorting a line of cocaine and overdosed on fentanyl that it was laced with. Recreational drug users all over America are dying from fentanyl poisoning – well over 100,000 last year, more than our losses in the Korean and Vietnam War combined – thanks to the wide-open southern border and the cartels profiting off the misery in enables, and yet the federal government does nothing to stop the flow.
That means it’s going to be up to those states willing to act in order to put a stop to the invasion. And yes, Greg Abbott ought to deploy the Texas National Guard to that border and begin turning away migrants on the Rio Grande. The word needs to get out that the border, at least in Texas (and Arizona), is closed – whether the federal government is willing to participate or not.
