Abbott’s latest border stunt targets New Mexico
Gov. Greg Abbott went to the Yale Club in New York City last month to address a friendly audience assembled by the Manhattan Institute.
The organization describes itself as “a public policy think tank dedicated to advancing opportunity, individual liberty, and the rule of law.”
The Center for Justice & Democracy at New York Law School sees the Manhattan Institute differently, mostly with prudence.
Founded by former CIA director William J. Casey, the institute receives funding from conservative foundations and Fortune 500 companies that put profits over people.
The Center for Justice & Democracy also points to flaws in some of the institute’s research, calling it “heavily criticized in law journals.”
So, it was no surprise that the Manhattan Institute welcomed Abbott on Sept. 27 to talk about the “Crisis at the Border” and heard what it wanted to hear.
Abbott spoke in terms of his successes: building a border wall that’s not under his purview, erecting inhumane concertina wire barriers that endanger lives, placing floating buoys in the Rio Grande that he described as safe, as if we can’t see that they’re separated by giant sawlike blades.
While in New York, the governor also misrepresented the federal asylum process and did his bit of fear-mongering, speaking of terrorists crossing into the country by way of the Mexican border.
He said migrants pay cartels to transport them, aided by a border made porous by the Biden administration.
“Texas is at war with its own federal government,” Abbott said.
It was a talk delivered to the right wing. It bought more airtime on Fox News. It was business as usual.
Except for the stunning comments he made at the 38-minute mark about New Mexico, Arizona and California, states that just aren’t “putting up the same resistance” to migrants as he is.
His Operation Lone Star has shifted migration to those states, he said, but there’s still a problem.
“You would still have people entering through New Mexico, Arizona and California.”
Then he zeroed-in on Texas’ biggest problem. It’s New Mexico, he said.
It’s part of the El Paso sector, he said, and “El Paso is in Texas. Most of the people coming into the El Paso sector, they don’t come to the United States through Texas, they come through New Mexico and then go over to El Paso.”
Then came the stunning news.
“So, not only are we building border barriers between the border of Texas and Mexico. We’re also having now to build border barriers between Texas and New Mexico.”
He seemed completely happy with himself, oblivious to the recklessness of his actions.
A friend who lives in San Antonio but native to New Mexico wondered — not so sarcastically — whether the trouble is that the word “Mexico” is in “New Mexico.”
She may have a point. Texas National Guard troops erected the razor-wire barrier recently. It reportedly stretches for about 2 miles along the Rio Grande near Sunland Park, N.M.
People have noticed the barrier — two rows of concertina wire strung between metal poles. One news report said the two rows of concertina wire can be spotted west of Interstate 10 near Mount Cristo Rey landmark in Sunland Park, N.M. The Santa Fe New Mexican declared: “Texas is taking its fight to New Mexico — literally.”
New Mexican officials said the state got no heads-up from Abbott.
A statement from the office of New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said, “We encourage Gov. Abbott to turn his attention away from a neverending stream of political stunts and toward working in earnest for the people of the state he was elected to represent.”
Governors have authority to enforce state laws — but federal laws, including immigration enforcement, remains the purview of federal authorities.
Neither can a state interfere with another state’s commerce, including the freedom of travel.
U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez, D-N.M., called the barrier unconstitutional.
“Gov. Abbott has done this before,” he said. “He has put up an illegal border wall with shipping containers, then he conned migrants into taking buses to other states without their clear consent, then he put up a death trap on the Rio Grande that drowned innocent migrants seeking asylum, and now, his latest stunt is putting up a barrier between Texas and New Mexico.”
The Democratic Party chairs of Texas and New Mexico demanded the wire’s removal.
“Shame on Greg Abbott for using public tax dollars to uplift his dangerous approach to border security and infringing upon Texans’ and New Mexicans’ right to move freely across state lines,” the joint statement read.
Like the bright orange floating barrier Abbott placed in the Rio Grande, his newest barrier may end up in court. That’s part of the stunt.
One story packaged its report with a photo that illustrates the weariness of it all.
It shows concertina wire along the river close to the Texas-new Mexico. Beyond it stands a sign that says, “Welcome to Texas.”