In recent days, a series of clashes between the U.S. federal government and the state of Texas over the issue of refugees at the border have attracted a lot of attention. On social networking in the United States, words such as "American Civil War" and "Lone Star**" even rushed to the hot search for a time.
It should be said that the most direct reason why the conflict between the federal and state governments in the United States has attracted so much attention is that the two sides really used swords and put on a posture of fighting if they disagree.
In order to resist the federal order, Texas not only mobilized a large number of National Guards to control the U.S.-Mexico border, but also brought in Republican governors from 25 red states in the United States to wave the flag and cheer for it. Among them, there are even some states that have sent their own national guards to "rush" to Texas.
Looking at this battle, it's almost quack
So, in the first month of 2024, why is there such a loud noise on the U.S.-Mexico border? In what way will this "Lone Star**" affect the United States in 2024?
Overwhelmed Texas.
As the so-called "freezing three feet is not a day's cold", although the head-on conflict between Texas and the United States federal ** is happening now, in fact, as early as the beginning of Trump**, the seeds of contradiction have been planted.
From the map, it is not difficult to see that on the 3,145-kilometer-long U.S.-Mexico border, four states are lined from east to west: Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California, with the border between Texas and Mexico being the longest of all states.
In addition, while all four states have built barriers of varying lengths along the U.S.-Mexico border, such as walls and barbed wire, Texas has built the least. The long border between El Paso, in the southwest and Brownsville in the southeast, is largely unguarded, making Texas the best choice for illegal immigrants to smuggle into the United States.
This section of the Texas border.
Most rely solely on the Rio Grande as a natural barrier
During the Trump administration, the U.S. federal government has been cracking down on illegal immigration, including but not limited to building a new U.S.-Mexico border wall (only 128 kilometers long, but mostly in Texas), ending the DACA program to protect young immigrants, expanding detention centers, and adopting a zero-tolerance policy for all adults who enter the country illegally.
These measures have indeed had the effect of restricting the entry of illegal immigrants.
In January 2017, a document was signed to build the U.S.-Mexico border wall.
The order was canceled after Biden took office.
Photo: Flickr).
According to data provided by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the number of illegal immigrants at the U.S.-Mexico border was 650,000 throughout fiscal year 2020.
However, after Biden took office, the Democratic Party, which is sympathetic and protective of illegal immigrants, has almost completely reversed the strict border policy introduced during the Trump era, which has caused the number of illegal immigrants entering the country from the U.S.-Mexico border to skyrocket.
Subsequently, Biden also redefined illegal immigrants as "contributing members of society", and in September 2021, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued an "amnesty order", announcing that U.S. law enforcement agencies will not arrest or deport illegal immigrants who entered the United States before November 1, 2020.
Last January, Biden inspected the southern border in El Paso, Texas.
At the same time, El Paso has a record number of immigrants.
Figure: Yitu.com).
For illegal immigrants, Biden's policy is equivalent to opening a legal "moist" door for them - as long as they are smuggled into the United States at all costs and find a job to "hack", then they can legally live and work in the United States after the next Democratic Party "amnesty".
In this way, Biden**'s laissez-faire policy for illegal immigrants has brought a huge impact to Texas.
In fiscal year 2021, the number of illegal immigrants at the U.S.-Mexico border soared to 1.73 million, and in fiscal year 2022, that number became 2.77 million. In the past fiscal year 2023, the number of illegal immigrants has reached a staggering 3.2 million, nearly five times the number in the last year of Trump's administration.
Can't stop it, can't stop it at all.
Photo: Shutterstock).
Faced with a full border detention center, Texas Governor Abbott began to use buses to transport illegal immigrants to New York, Illinois, and Washington, D.C., and other pro-Democratic blue states in order to express his dissatisfaction.
In October 2022, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, declared a state of emergency in the city because "more immigrants are arriving in New York City than we can immediately accommodate." Last December, Adams issued another executive order requiring charter companies to notify the city 32 hours before they bring illegal immigrants to New York, and the number of illegal immigrants arriving in New York City each day must be strictly limited.
On Christmas Eve 2022, Texas even made an "abstract job" of using 3 buses at a time to illegally move more than 140 people to the door of Deputy Harris's house.
Texas: All the immigrants you want have been delivered to your door, thank you.
Photo: reuters).
The depth of the contradictions between the U.S. federal state and Texas is also evident from this.
The High Court's verdict that triggered the contradiction.
After entering 2023, the tug between Republicans and Biden around the issue of illegal immigration has also not stopped.
Since the Democrats lost control of the House of Representatives in the 2022 midterm elections, they must turn to the Republican side when passing the relevant bills. Taking this opportunity, the Republican Party put together the two issues of "providing military aid to Ukraine" and "strengthening the control of the US-Mexico border", and said that there is no problem with military aid to Ukraine, but only if the federal government is willing to allocate more funds to several border states and strengthen border control to prevent more illegal immigrants from entering the United States.
In this regard, the Democrats have been-for-tat and have always been unwilling to back down. As a result of the repeated tugging of the "Ukraine-border" bill in both houses, although Ukraine's military aid from the United States has been greatly reduced, the measures taken by the Republican-controlled red states to control immigration in the border areas are still increasing.
What triggered the contradiction between the federal government and Texas was a border control measure taken by Texas in the small U.S.-Mexico border town of Eagle Pass.
The tipping point of this border incident.
Right at Shelby Park in the city of Igpass.
On the other side of the river is Mexico
To put it simply, there is a boundary river between the city of Igpas and Mexico called the Rio Grande, which is not deep and does not flow very fast, making it ideal for illegal immigrants to wade through the water.
To plug the loophole, Texas law enforcement set up floating barriers on the Rio Grande and pulled up a special snake-bellied barbed wire near Shelby Park on the Igpass side.
Different from ordinary barbed wire, this snake-bellied barbed wire is installed with a large number of extremely sharp iron sheets, even in the process of laying, as long as you do not wear professional protective equipment, it is easy to be injured, and its deterrent effect on illegal immigrants can be imagined.
The cold light is shining, and it is extremely sharp.
Snake-bellied barbed wire Figure: KTVZ).
In the face of Texas' assertive actions, the Federal** determined that the floating barriers and barbed wire would cause damage to U.S. diplomatic relations and public safety, and ordered Border Patrol agents affiliated with the Federation to cut the barbed wire.
In October last year, Texas took the federal state to court, arguing that federal officials had interfered with Texas' efforts to maintain its borders. In December 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which heard the case, upheld Texas**'s claim that U.S. federal ** personnel should no longer cut these special barbed wires.
Subsequently, Biden appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. On January 22, nine Supreme Court officials reversed the appellate court's decision by a 5-4 decision, finding that Texas had no authority to block federal action to remove the barbed wire.
The Supreme Court, one of the symbols of the separation of powers.
He is the final arbiter in the field of justice in the United States.
U.S. Supreme Court Photo: YITU.com).
However, the Supreme Court's verdict is very "chicken thief", it did not find that the laying of barbed wire in Texas itself is illegal, and theoretically Texas can cut the barbed wire after the federal personnel cut it, and the two sides can still continue to tug at each other around this matter.
However, Governor Abbott, who is quite resentful of the federal **, is obviously not ready to continue playing the game of card bugs.
On January 24, local time, Abbott issued an "article" in the name of Texas, in which he believed that the influx of illegal immigrants into Texas had constituted an "invasion" of the state, and the federal ** ignored it, which violated Article 4, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution (the federal ** has the responsibility to protect the states from invasion).
The hard-line Texas Governor Abbott.
Figure: Yitu.com).
Therefore, Texas also has the right to invoke Article 1, Section 10, Paragraph 3 of the Constitution (states have the power to protect their sovereign interests on their own borders) to take up ** and defend against the "invasion" of illegal immigrants. In this way, the drama of the local governor mobilizing the National Guard against the Union ** officially began.
The ubiquitous donkey elephant party fight.
Despite the current tough stance of Texas** and half of the states claiming to support Texas, the federal and local dispute over illegal immigration has no chance of further escalating into a civil war in the United States.
As early as 1957, during the Eisenhower administration, there was a direct confrontation between the United States federal ** and Arkansas over "whether to allow black children to enter public schools".
At that time, the governor of Alberta also issued an order for the Argentine National Guard to surround the Little Rock Central Elementary School and prevent nine black children from entering the middle school, which is known as the "Little Rock Incident".
Under the escort of the 101 Airborne Division.
Nine black students were eventually able to enroll
The incident ended with Eisenhower ordering the federal ** to take over the Alberta National Guard, and the Army's airborne division immediately went to Little Rock to suppress it.
In other words, at present, Biden can also follow the example of his "ancestor", federalize the National Guard in Texas, and send American regular troops to parachute in to "counterinsurgency", which completely cuts off all possibilities for a full-scale civil war in the United States.
It looks like a Texas warrior with explosive force value.
A set of federalization + airborne counterinsurgency combo punch down.
It also has to die down immediately (Texas National Guard Photo: Yitu.com).
However, although this matter will most likely be resolved in the end by taking a step back from each side, the problems reflected behind it are real.
It is worth noting that the two candidates who are participating in the 2024 Republican primary election in the United States, Donald Trump and Nikki Haley, have expressed their strong support for Texas, and the 25 states that issued a statement in support of Texas this time are basically the same as the voting tendencies shown by the United States in 2020.
2020 USA*** results
Even in a light blue state like Virginia, Youngkin, a Republican who served as governor, stood up and expressed support for Texas. Of all the Republican governors in the country, only Phil Scott, who is the governor of Vermont, which is a deep blue state, did not sign the statement. To some extent, this is also a reflection of the Republican Party's unity on the issue of illegal immigration, which has always been an important platform pursued by the Republican Party.
On the other hand, illegal immigrants from other countries will also support the Donkey Party because of the Democratic Party's more tolerant immigration policies. We can get a glimpse of this from the bluening of Texas.
Generally speaking, Texas has been a staunch Republican red state for a long time, but in recent years, due to the influx of illegal immigrants and more and more young immigrants who support the Democratic Party, Texas is becoming more and more blue, such as Fort Worth, Dallas, Austin and other big cities, have been fully blued and become the iron votes of the Democratic Party.
The capital of Texas has become a deep blue Democratic vote base.
The Republican Party really feels like it's been stolen.
Street view of Austin, the capital of Texas Photo: Yitu.com).
In 2016, Trump was still able to beat Hillary Clinton by 899 percentage points. And in 2020, in a head-to-head showdown with Biden, Trump's advantage was only 558%。
Considering that at the beginning of this century, Republican candidates were often able to defeat Democratic candidates by a huge margin of more than 20 percent, the rapid blue-turning of Texas will inevitably cause anxiety and uneasiness among Republicans.
It is foreseeable that as a hot topic that has detonated in the first month of 2024 in the United States, the two parties will inevitably have a fierce battle over the issue of illegal immigration in the subsequent election process.
A combined punch of border wall + patrol car.
It can't stop the rolling in illegal immigrants at all.
U.S.-Mexico border Photo: YITU.com).
At present, Trump, who has won two consecutive party primaries in Iowa and New Hampshire, has basically locked the seat of this year's Republican ** candidate, while the Democratic Party has not even made much effort in the party primary, and acquiesced in guaranteeing Biden to continue running.
As long as the two men are not physically ill, and Trump is not disqualified from the candidacy due to judicial issues in November, there is reason to believe that the 2020 old age showdown will continue this year.
The pinnacle showdown, who will kill the deer.
Figure: Yitu.com).
The content of this article is provided by the author and does not necessarily represent the position of the Earth Knowledge Bureau
Cover: Shutterstock
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