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Notes -
Texas Border Flareup... Again
https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23A607/295564/20240112012220571_23a607%20DHS%20v%20TX%20supplement.pdf
Texas has seized a public park in Eagle Pass to take control of a 2.5 mile stretch of the border(https://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-blocks-federal-border-agents-processing-migrants-eagle-pass-shelby-park/). This is a bigger deal than it seems; the only boat launch and main surveillance point for miles is located there, effectively preventing border patrol from operating over a relatively wider frontage.
Context
The State of Texas has long been adding concertina wire to the border to prevent crossings, and has been accusing the federal government of cutting it to allow migrants to cross. Recently Texas won an injunction in court blocking the federal government from doing this, and the federal government has of course appealed, but the injunction includes an exception for if cutting the wire is necessary to assist migrants experiencing a medical emergency.
So Texas seized the main surveillance point and boat launch(in this sector) for the border patrol to prevent them seeing migrants experiencing a medical emergency. For the record, I don't trust the federal government with this "medical emergency" exception either, but this is flatly illegal in, well, pretty much every way you approach it.
https://news4sanantonio.com/news/trouble-shooters/texas-blocks-border-patrol-from-entering-key-area-for-illegal-crossings
Of course the border patrol union is siding with Abbott, which would make it awkward for fedgov if they cared. Although Abbott's justification has nothing to do with the border patrol union's:
And anecdotally his fundraising emails are talking a lot more about state sovereignty than normal. It led to a twitter breakdown by Gina Hinojosa(head of the Texas democrats) accusing him of being a secessionist, and the admittedly low chance of Gina Hinojosa of all people meming Texas independence into the political mainstream through the power of negative partisanship is kind of hilarious.
But back to the topic at hand; it's unclear what Abbott's actual game is; he's an accomplished constitutional lawyer(literally; that's how he became governor) and knows he's going to lose at court. He's also never been the reckless type and so it's unlikely he did this without thinking it through. Angling for a Trump cabinet seat, maybe? It also surprises me that he did this now; primaries are coming up in March, and Abbott endorsed a relatively wide array of candidates to try to shift the house in a more partisan republican direction; taking a political risk like this one is unlike him.
The behavior of the federal government here is bizarre.
In the US, how many people are open-borders advocates? 5% 10%? And yet, the people who pull the strings in the federal government seem to be okay with defacto open borders. Let's be honest. Most of the people who are processed, shipped to another state, and given a court date years in the future will be here for good.
There appear to be two paths to US citizenship. A legal route, which is nearly impossible for most people, and an illegal route which gets easier and easier.
Recently a school in Brooklyn was shut down (for one day) to house illegal migrants. Source, with bonus inaccurate fact check:
https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-house-migrants-school-shut-down-673190116310
New York and other cities are howling about migrants being bussed into their communities, but so far seem reluctant to change their sanctuary city policies. Why? Just to stick it to Trump? To me it seems only fair that migrants be housed in the communities that explicitly claim to want them.
This has to be the number issue for every Republican candidate in 2024. It seems that the European migrant problems have made it to America. The situation seems to be getting out of control.
They want to replace and degrade whites and white men in particular. There's an elite consensus that this is the way to go.
Economically - diversity quotas, govt contracts favouring non-white companies, hostile workplace environment lawsuits and affirmative action. We see various leaked information showing how white men were disfavoured in RAF hiring, how the USAF plans to make its staff more representative of America, how 20% of HR workers admit they've done it, IIRC.
Socially - see https://twitter.com/StupidWhiteAds for a huge list of examples in advertising. I can't think of any modern ads that sneer at blacks, with the exception of that Chinese ad where a young woman put her black suitor in the washing machine until he turned Chinese. There's also historical revision to prioritize the black-slavery/civil rights narrative in US history. I know enough about historiography to know that you can present and choose different facts to produce hugely different narratives, even before you start lying outright. There's also the whole concept of white privilege.
Physically - see mass immigration, both legal and illegal is the most obvious case. I suppose one could also argue that progressive taxation takes from whites and Asians, gives to blacks and browns, artificially lowering the fertility of productive groups and raising that of less productive groups.
Categorically - see the developing practice of capitalizing 'Black' and 'Brown' while decapitalizing 'white'. Delta Airlines sent a memo specifying this just the other day. The old rule was that ethnicities, regions and states like Caucasian, European or French were capitalized while colours weren't. The new rule clearly singles out whites as not being a real group with a shared identity. See also Ignatiev's theoretical work on undermining whiteness as an identity.
Alternately, observe how traditionally white countries like England are being recategorized as 'nations of immigrants', how the BBC works hard to find and fabricate diversity in history. A Doctor Who episode set in the Victorian era showed 1/3 of London being black/brown with the Doctor remarking that 'history was a whitewash'.
It's easily within the US's capabilities to prevent illegal immigration. This isn't the Russian or Chinese army on the other side of the world (which the US plans to defeat). It's unarmed, disorganized, poorly funded people right next to the US, in a hemisphere the US dominates, hoping to enter and work a job without being imprisoned or deported. Illegal immigration is a political choice for any rich, strong power.
While the US becoming minority-White might be an added bonus for plenty of establishment democrats with a lot of sway over US immigration policy, the federal government doesn't have the state capacity to deport 10 million people and it won't for the foreseeable future. Nor does it have the state capacity to consistently enforce labor laws for natives, who are better tracked. There's also no good replacement for illegal labor in the US economy; absent migrants working below market wages in jobs no-one else not on probation is willing to take food prices would skyrocket and absent illegals working 12 hour days construction would get even slower and more difficult. This is politically untenable so no one wants to do it.
Now the US can do a lot to slow the tide(like cracking down on sanctuary cities), but it's not just that we can't deport 11 million people, it's that we don't really know how to run a society without them. They do a lot of important jobs Americans refuse to and that's a travesty, but no one knows how to fix it.
Back in the 1950s and 1960s the US could construct things quickly and simply, Eisenhower built the national highway system even as he expelled a million illegal immigrants. If food prices rise, they could try subsidizing or mechanizing labour-intensive work. There are non-trivial expenses in health/education spending on illegal immigrants, that money could be redirected to subsidies. Illegal immigrants undercut domestic workers, it would logically raise employment and wages amongst the working class.
Nobody had this helpless attitude for the other major problems the US faced. When the Arabs launched an oil embargo and plunged the developed world into a recession, the US didn't give up on supporting Israel. They rationed petrol, they launched fuel-efficiency programs, they looked into nuclear energy and renewables.
The US state apparatus is way larger today and has all kinds of fancy AI/surveillance tools, it's well within their abilities to launch Operation Wetback 2.0.
Back in the 50s and 60s Americans were young and thin and quite a bit less rich.
They certainly don't seem to feel rich today, what with the common complaints about rent and healthcare and being unable to support a family on a single income anymore.
Perhaps single income only felt rich before because men were effectively earning their wife's share in the market and their wife felt rich as long as her husband was, resulting in some kind of positive-sum richness feeling?
Most Americans can, in fact, support a family on a single income. Yes, a 50’s size family.
They don’t do it because of lifestyle constraints- every adult has a car and everyone in the house has a room and multiple sets of nice clothes and we eat at restaurants a lot and at home we don’t have beanie weenies is not how the fifties single earner families lived.
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