Houston, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. state of Texas and the federal government have been fighting for days over border security and the flow of migrants, raising fears that the situation has escalated into confrontation. The sharp struggle highlights the contradictions and divisions between the Democratic and Republican parties on the immigration issue, and the immigration issue will also become a key issue that will affect the election situation in the United States in 2024.
State vs. Federal Battles.
About half of the border between the United States and Mexico is in Texas, and the problem of cross-border migration has always been a pain point in Texas.
According to the latest U.S. federal** data, the number of illegal immigrants at the U.S.-Mexico border** was close to 250,000 in December 2023, a record increase of 31% from November. According to the U.S. House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee, fiscal year 2023 was the worst year ever for U.S. border issues, with more than 3.2 million illegal immigrants deported or apprehended, about three-quarters of which occurred at the Southwest border.
This is a photo of migrants inside a shelter in the U.S.-Mexico border city of Reynosa, Mexico, May 16, 2023. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Xin Yuewei.
During the Biden tenure in the United States, Republican-ruled Texas often attacked the federal state of inaction on the issue of illegal immigration, and used various local resources to crack down on illegal immigration, including enacting state laws to try to criminalize illegal border crossings, renewing border walls, installing barbed wire, and using buses to move a large number of people across the border to New York, Chicago, Washington, D.C. and other Democratic-run cities. These measures have repeatedly sparked a dispute between "state rights" and "federal rights".
The United States has a federal system, and there have long been disputes over federal and state power. In the border immigration conflict, the federal ** resorted to the Supreme Court, and Texas Republican Governor Abbott said that he would continue to defend the constitutional right of Texas to protect border security.
According to an article published in the US "Newsweek," this contradiction has once again awakened the "Texas Secession" movement, and if the tension turns into a crisis, many factions, including Texas nationalists, are ready to change the "political topography" of North America.
The outcome of the confrontation between Texas and the federal government on immigration and border security is yet to be decided. However, in terms of momentum, the Federation is temporarily at a disadvantage. The results of the poll released by Rasmussen Poll Reporting Company on the 29th showed that more than two-thirds of potential voters supported Texas** to take action to stop illegal immigration.
Red and blue are opposites.
On the issue of immigration, the Democratic and Republican parties have different attitudes based on their respective voter groups: minority groups have historically favored the Democratic Party politically, so the Democratic Party is more inclined to open and pluralistic immigration policies; The Republican Party, in order to win the support of conservatives, has always taken a hard line and advocated restricting immigration.
The current struggle between Texas and the federal government over the issue of immigration at the border has a strong partisan color, highlighting the long-standing differences and antagonism between the Democratic and Republican parties on the issue of immigration.
This is a vehicle transporting migrants photographed in San Antonio, Texas, U.S., on September 30, 2022. Xinhua News Agency (photo by Nick Wagner).
Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives announced on the 28th two ** articles against Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas, alleging that he "deliberately and systematically refuses to comply with the law" and violates public trust. Earlier, 25 Republican governors of the United States issued a joint statement in support of Abbott to strengthen the protection of the southern border, and many of them pledged to support Texas. Congressional Republicans have also previously tied immigration reform to Biden's aid to Ukraine as a way to force Democrats to compromise.
Standing behind Abbott is the entire Republican Party, which does not intend to reach a compromise with Biden. Russia Today TV ** published an article on the 28th. Vladimir Vasilyev, chief researcher at the Institute of American and Canadian Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, was quoted in the article as saying: "The Texas-Biden ** conflict that we are now seeing is another manifestation of the extremely fierce political struggle between Republicans and Democrats." ”
Congressman Marjorie Taylor Green, a Republican from Georgia, recently issued an article calling for a "national divorce" between the "red states" controlled by the Republican Party and the "blue states" controlled by the Democratic Party, that is, the United States is divided into red and blue according to politics and ideology.
* Key issues.
The immigration issue is an old issue of bipartisan struggle in the United States, and it will be magnified and heated up every year. According to the Harris poll conducted by the Harvard Center for American Political Studies, immigration is the most important issue for American voters. Analysts believe that the outcome of the confrontation between Texas and the White House may have a significant impact on the election in the United States this year.
Polls released by several organizations show that voters who believe that the Republican Party is better able to solve the immigration problem are about 30 percentage points higher than those who believe in the Democratic Party. Iowa and New Hampshire, which have just held Republican primaries and are far from the U.S.-Mexico border, polls found that voters believe immigration is almost as important as the economy. The results of the poll on immigration have put a lot of pressure on Biden, who is seeking re-election.
Against this backdrop, Biden issued a statement on the 26th, urging both parties in Congress to pass a border reform plan that is in line with the aid to Ukraine plan, which aims to curb the surge in migrants from Mexico into the United States. Biden also said he was willing to use the emergency powers he granted to him on the day the bill was signed to close borders that were overwhelmed by the flow of migrants. Biden's statement is a major change from when he ran for the election in 2020, and it also confirms the important impact of the immigration issue on the election.
Patrol officers walk along a newly constructed border wall in the U.S. border city of Eagle Pass, Texas, Jan. 7, 2022. Xinhua News Agency (photo by Nick Wagner).
Trump is currently leading the Republican primary. Building a border wall was one of Trump's key campaign promises during the 2016 election and attracted the support of a large number of anti-immigrant conservatives, especially white conservatives. In recent years, demographic changes in the United States have fueled a sense of identity crisis among conservative white groups, which has spurred a wave of anti-immigrant politics.
Trump has made "Biden's border crisis" a central campaign issue this year. In his campaign speech in Las Vegas on the 27th, he called "the border issue more important than ever in politics", urged congressional Republicans to refuse to reach any border reform agreement with Biden, and said that the "only hope" for U.S. border security is to vote for him.
Louis Descipio, a professor of political science at the University of California, Irvine, believes that from 2016 to the present, Trump has effectively amplified "the fear of change that immigration has brought to the United States over the past few decades." U.S. media analysis believes that the more favorable Trump is in this year's election, the more likely it is that more immigrants will choose to cross the border into the United States before the new ** takes office next year, which will cause more border chaos, which in turn will fuel anti-immigrant politics.
However, the United States has always been a dynamic process, and the issue of immigration has become the number one concern of voters at this stage, which does not mean that the whole process will be the same. The direction of the United States** will be influenced by multiple factors, not by a single issue. (Participating reporter: Liu Si).