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I know you described the situation correctly, but I want to emphasize this point because it was not obvious to me when I first heard about this story: Texas is not directly defying the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court did not order Texas to do anything. The Supreme Court refused to uphold an injunction against the Federal Government, i.e., they said that Texas can't order the Federal Government to stop cutting wires. It's a distinction without a difference, but a big difference.
Still, if you had presented me this story a month ago, I would have guessed Texas would have backed down already. So I'm moderately surprised this is being fought. I'm still pretty cynical about a lot of Republican politicians, but maybe there's something a little deeper going on here.
Texas is standing up because they kind of are actually defending themselves against an invasion right now. Several hospitals are basically only serving migrants and aren't being compensated. They are threatening to shut down and leave the state. Biden has no political leg to stand on, and only a thin legal leg that there are 4 strong votes on SCOTUS to kick out from under him, and 2 questionable votes.
Er, Biden has a very strong legal leg to stand on. It's not an invasion, it's illegal immigration. The current situation is different in scale to what has happened continuously for many decades but not conceptually. I understand the desire to rhetorically brand the situation an "invasion", but it's not actually what it is. October 7th is what an invasion looks like.
The federal government does in fact have the legal authority to administer immigration law. That the current one is doing so very badly does not change this.
I think Abbott should keep shipping the migrants to New York and other 'sanctuary cities'. If they have no problems with uncontrolled border crossings, they should have no problems if those migrants keep right on crossing all the way to their doorstep, right?
It's a bad situation all round; do the Democrats want to do anything about illegal immigration, or are they happy to let the border states deal with all the people streaming in and needing resources, and they can just keep it as a political point about "we're compassionate and pro-minority, unlike those awful Republicans, (but don't ask us to have those people live next door)"?
Enforce the border, or pour more resources into providing hospitals etc. and keeping track of who turns up and where they're going. As it stands, it's a mess and nobody's reactions are doing any good.
I disagree,
In fact I would argue that Abbott has decision making throughout this mess has been consistently good/correct from both a legal/game-theoretic perspective and a Christian/Moral one.
From a purely legal standpoint the White House's case is much weaker than it's being made out to be as, in theory at least, in order for the supremacy or preemption clauses to take effect there would have to be a meaningful discrepancy between the law as passed by congress and the law as enforced by state officials. Those laws are still on the books even if the Feds aren't enforcing them.
From simple "good governance" perspective Abbott is representing the will/interests of his constituents.
From a Christian perspective helping those who wish to migrate reach places where they will be welcomed and cared for (IE those cities that have declared themselves to be Sanctuaries) is an act of charity.
Finally, from a game theoretic perspective offloading the costs of a policy onto those who support said policy is just the obviously correct move. That Democrats have reacted badly and are now throwing a temper-tantrum does not change the fact that Abbott and the wider Texas Legislature has acted well.
Edit: I keep forgetting that there are 2 't's in Abbott
I think Texas does have a right to protect its border, I think that the stream of migrants into the USA over the border in this fashion is not tenable, and I think successive governments have done nothing about it because, to be blunt, it's the rednecks down south that have to handle it, we can just posture about being "in this house we believe" without having to put our money where our mouth is. As I've said before, when it was migrants turning up on their doorsteps, the "in this house" types couldn't get shot of them fast enough.
But as it stands, everybody is being failed. Discussion on this thread about civil war, executing the governor, secession and who knows what else? That's fantasy talk and is not addressing the real, concrete problems. The courts can fight it out over who has more authority - states rights with the federal model meaning each state can govern itself, or the national government over-rides that.
But when it's "we have thousands of people who have to be managed somehow - keep them, send them back, what?" then some kind of action is needed that is not posturing, cosplaying Civil War II, or making presidential campaign hay out of it. I think Abbott's busing the migrants was clever and impactful, but the 'will Biden send in the troops, nationalise the Guard, or what?" speculation isn't doing anything to help right now.
If "no human is illegal", what do you do with everyone who turns up and keeps turning up? Is it fair to ask the same cities to take care of them? Is it okay to let them disseminate throughout the USA with no records or monitoring of them? Is your country going to throw up its hands and say "Okay, if the various countries of South America are failed states, we'll absorb your populations?" I don't think that last can work in any way whatsoever, but as the situation is right now, that's the de facto situation.
They aren't. Venezuela, Haiti, and arguably Mexico are failed states, and Mexico has been adjudicated as safe by US courts. Ecuador and Nicaragua are also deeply unpleasant places to live right now in a way that they weren't before.
But, a migrant from Venezuela to the US border passes through three safe, stable middle income countries(Columbia, Costa Rica, and Panama), then some poor but not unstable countries, then Mexico, then reaches the US border. And statistically few of the migrants are from Mexico; they're mostly from South America. The "nearest safe country" for these people is mostly Columbia or Brazil.
Texas' law allowing state level deportations takes effect in March. In all likelihood Greg Abbott will wave around the past week's events to the troops when he ostentatiously ignores the supreme court's declaration that US v Arizona renders it unconstitutional.
Venezuela and Haiti, I can definitely see. But I used to see Mexico always brought up as "doing decently" for Latin American standards. Why do you say it's arguably a failed state?
This is kinda using two definitions of "failed state". Usually a "failed state" is one where the government cannot control its territory (or its borders, which sometimes leads to claims that the US is a failed state). There are fairly large parts of Mexico that the cartels, rather than the central government, controls. Venezuela isn't a failed state in that sense, it's a communist hellhole with a poor economy.
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