At the Texas border, the Texas National Guard and State Police often clash with the Federal Border Patrol. But in the first month of 2024, as immigration policy becomes the first "campaign card" in the United States in an election year, the "small contradictions" on the border line have escalated into a "civil war" between the federal and Texas states. Now the "civil war" was "fought" from the border line to Capitol Hill and entered the second half.
According to the respective plans of the Democrats and Republicans, immigration policy will be at the center of two major congressional agendas in early February. On the one hand, the two parties will try to reach a new budget deal that will link issues such as immigration policy and aid to Ukraine, including expanding the authorization to close borders in order to more effectively prevent "illegal immigrants" from entering the country. If the two parties fail to reach a consensus on a new agreement, the Federal** will once again face the risk of a "shutdown" when the "Continuation Resolution" expires in March this year.
Republicans, on the other hand, are initiating a ** against Federal Secretary of Homeland Security Mayorkas for "non-compliance with immigration laws." The bill is likely to pass the House of Representatives on Feb. 5, which would be the first Cabinet secretary in the U.S. Congress since 1876.
Texas National Guard soldiers stand guard in Shelby Park in Eagle Pass, Texas, U.S., Jan. 26. Figure Visual China.
The two most likely candidates for the 2024** election, Democrat Biden and Republican Trump, have clearly stood on both sides of the new round of the game. At the end of January, Biden repeatedly called for bipartisan consensus on immigration, while Trump demanded that Republicans be tough. Greene, the most radical "Trumpist" congressman in the House of Representatives, has said that if House Republican leader Johnson and the Democrats reach a compromise, what awaits Johnson will be the party's first.
Clearly, the substance and solution of the migration issue are not important to both sides. The Trump team saw this as an opportunity to bolster voter base and test party loyalty, while Biden and Democrats sought to portray Trump as a "civil war instigator" and use it to galvanize voters. Some analysts believe that the higher the risk of "civil war", the more likely it is that middle voters will abandon Trump if Biden is unable to introduce more policies on issues such as reducing fossil fuels and guaranteeing abortion rights.
The problem is that if Biden doesn't want to be the culprit for "fomenting the civil war" and leading to the "shutdown" like Trump, he must reach a compromise with Republican leaders in both chambers, McConnell and Johnson, on immigration policy, and take the opportunity to direct the war to the Republican Party.
Within the Republican Party, establishment leader Mitch McConnell and Trump have been at odds with each other since the 2020 election. If McConnell can win the support of Senate Republicans with the cooperation of Democrats and block the passage of the deal by radical Republicans in the House of Representatives, he will be able to leave a political legacy for his record tenure as Senate leader and a last-ditch effort for the establishment to counterbalance Trump. On the other hand, as Politico put it, if McConnell is in vain, Trump "will consolidate control over the whole party."
Unlike McConnell, who is retiring, Speaker Johnson, the youngest speaker in House history, is struggling with his political life. He tried to distance himself from the "anti-Trump" Republicans in the Senate, but he was still criticized by "Trumpist" members of the House as "increasingly McConnell-like". When Green threatened a possible Johnson, Trump spoke out that he believed Johnson's toughness. That means there is no way back for Johnson, 52, — he must veto any deal on immigration that comes from the Senate.
Obviously, with Biden "can't" and Trump "doesn't want to", the time has not yet come to end the "migrant civil war". The collective support of 25 Republican governors for Texas to confront the federal ** is only the beginning of the local leaders of both parties being drawn into this "civil war". Trump's victory in the party primaries has already reflected a major shift in American politics since 2016: all local politics is national politics, and confrontation at the highest level will spread to every corner of American society in an election year.
As the opening drama of "no facts, only partisan politics" gradually reaches its climax, both sides seem to have forgotten the beginning of everything: the number of illegal immigrants entering the United States has been rising during the Biden administration, but the origin of this "immigration civil war" is not "whether to support illegal immigrants".
On January 22, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court, with a conservative majority of judges, voted 5-4 in favor of Biden**'s claim that the agency could remove part of the barbed wire fence at the Texas border to facilitate mobile enforcement by the Federal Border Patrol. Texas** refused to obey the Supreme Court and federal** orders and erected more fences. Both sides insisted that their border policies were "the harshest and most effective," and that what began as a dispute over means turned into a life-and-death political scramble less than ten days later.
Author: Cao Ran.