Meeting the moment
As Texas escalates border dispute, Youngkin missed a chance to lead
This nation must carve out space in our public discourse for reasonable, measured and constructive discussion about immigration policy and the southern border. Doing so requires officials, such as Gov. Glenn Youngkin, to set aside petty partisanship and act as responsible leaders.
Sadly, a nation once fueled by bold ideas and noble dreams now satiates itself on pithy soundbites and cruel, gutless memes. In Washington, cowardice cloaked in party loyalty impedes substantive work for an electorate that craves solutions to policy problems, not endless grandstanding and gridlock.
Never is that more evident than in the stubborn refusal of federal lawmakers over the years to negotiate honestly about immigration, perhaps because doing so forces us to confront another instance in which America’s aspirations do not match with its history.
The United States is a melting pot, a nation of immigrants, and a place where Lady Liberty lifts her lamp beside the golden door to those huddled masses yearning to breathe free. But it is also a nation that from its earliest days erected barriers to those it considered “undesirable.”
Those crossing the southern border today are savaged by the same slurs hurled at migrants from Africa, Ireland, Italy, Eastern Europe, China, Japan, the Middle East and so many others before them. Nativists maliciously paint them as disease-ridden criminals stealing American jobs, the easily duped pawns of political opportunists. (See the film “Gangs of New York” for context. Spoiler: The nativists are the bad guys.)
The situation at the southern border
isn’t the fault of the migrants but a failure of Congress to compromise on policy solutions that offer these desperate people protection from oppression and an opportunity to contribute productively to our society.
Yes, President Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Barack Obama and their predecessors contributed to this failure, but had federal lawmakers not abdicated their responsibility to set immigration policy, it’s hardly a leap to say things would be vastly different
at the border today.
The trouble is, Congress rarely seeks compromise or middle ground on the big issues these days. Extremists on both sides set the agenda, leaving little room for negotiations. Even those who should know better recklessly choose to exacerbating division instead of building bridges.
Which brings us to Gov. Youngkin.
This month, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in an ongoing dispute between Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and the Biden White
House over the deployment of razor wire to deter migrant border crossings. In a narrow ruling, the justices sided with Washington, giving Border Patrol officers authority to remove the wire pending a Feb. 7 hearing on the full lawsuit by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Abbott vowed to defy the Supreme
Court order. Youngkin was one of several Republican governors who backed Abbott, demonstrating contempt for the rule of the law and a lack of empathy for migrants mangled and killed by these barriers, many of whom are children.
“Virginia stands with Texas,” Youngkin wrote on his campaign, not gubernatorial, social media this week, following up with an email blast from his political action committee. It could be dismissed as cynical virtue signaling had Youngkin not plucked 100 Virginia National Guard members from their families and jobs and sent them to Texas in July. The stunt cost Virginia taxpayers $3.1 million and netted the governor a nifty photo op.
It did not help bring about the sort of change needed in immigration policy, not when Congress continues to sit on its hands rather than act. Word came this week that Republicans may scuttle a carefully negotiated bipartisan border bill at the behest of Trump, who wants to campaign on the issue.
Yet, rather than call for a bipartisan immigration solution or urge his GOP colleagues to bargain in good faith, Youngkin chose partisan buffoonery. Stand with Texas? Against the Supreme Court and the Constitution? No, sir.
Resolving this intractable issue requires trustworthy, measured leadership. What a shame our governor couldn’t rise to meet the moment.