(HorizonPost.com) – Democrat lawmakers are calling on President Joe Biden to federalize the Texas National Guard if the state continues to erect concertina wire now that the Supreme Court permitted Border Patrol agents to remove it, The Hill reported.
In a tweet last Tuesday, Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro accused Governor Greg Abbott of using the Texas Guard “to obstruct and create chaos at the border.” Castro falsely accused the governor of “defying” the Supreme Court’s ruling and demanded that the president “establish sole federal control of the Texas National Guard.”
Texas Democrat Rep. Greg Casar echoed Casto’s call in a Twitter thread the following day.
In a January 24 statement, Governor Abbott defended his decision to continue installing concertina wire, saying that President Biden had “ignored” the state’s demand to “perform his constitutional duties.”
The governor noted that Texas “declared an invasion” which gave him the authority to invoke the state’s “constitutional authority to defend and protect itself,” which he described as “the supreme law of the land” that “supersedes any federal statutes to the contrary.”
Abbott said the agencies in Texas, including the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Texas National Guard, were acting on that constitutional authority, “as well as state law, to secure the Texas border.”
In a tweet last Wednesday, Governor Abbott said that the concertina wire was “an effective deterrent” against the flood of illegals “encouraged by Biden’s open border policies.” He said the state would continue to “deploy” the wire “to repel illegal immigration.”
The Supreme Court last Monday lifted an injunction preventing Border Patrol from removing the concertina wire erected at the Texas border.
During an interview on “CNN This Morning” Thursday morning, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre dodged the question of whether the president would consider federalizing the Texas National Guard, saying that the president had been working with the Senate to “come up with a bipartisan agreement to deal with the border.” She claimed that Governor Abbott wasn’t “interested in that” and accused him of wanting to “politicize” the issue rather than “helping communities.”
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