US immigration activists blast Texas border wall as insurrection

US immigration activists have described attempts made by Texas to build its own border wall as an ‘insurrection against the US’, according to a report published by The Washington Times. A major Latino group has urged President Joe Biden to quash increasing efforts being made by so-called red-state governors to enforce their own border security.

The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) delivered a letter to the White House on American Independence Day, calling on President Biden to block state governors who have said that they will deploy their National Guard or other assistance to help Texas secure parts of the US border.

Texas governor, Greg Abbott, recently accused the federal government of ‘failing to do its job’ of stemming the flow of migrants from Central American countries and has ordered Texas state police and the National Guard to monitor the borders. Abbott has also said that Texas will ‘construct a border wall with state money’.

Engaging in rebellion

LULAC said that states taking it upon themselves to police borders are ‘engaging in rebellion’. The National president of the US immigration activist group, Domingo Garcia, said: “We told the President in no uncertain terms, this is an insurrection by recalcitrant and rebellious states that must be stopped.”

Garcia also accused Abbott – who recently welcomed former President Donald Trump for a border visit – of “fomenting dangerous racial hatred that targets Latinos.”

Texas director for LULAC, Rodolfo Rosales Jr, compared the actions of rogue states as similar to those seen during the American Civil War. Rosales Jr said: “We are being invaded by governors of the defeated Confederacy to arm the border against brown women and children escaping political persecution, hunger, and death.”

The states in question include Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Nebraska and South Dakota, which LULAC said ‘don’t exactly match the contours of the Confederacy, and questions of the ability of each state to influence federal immigration policy extend well beyond the current Biden administration border crisis’.

Sanctuary cities 

Efforts to police US immigration out of sync with the federal government are not uncommon. Under the Trump administration, so-called sanctuary cities resisted efforts to comply with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Meanwhile, former President Barak Obama faced attempts by states to impose their own penalties on illegal immigration and efforts to block businesses from hiring people in the country without legal authorization.

In both cases, states were given some leeway, although courts did rule that states were prohibited from enforcing US immigration policies of their own.

However, states deploying their National Guard to police the border is common practice that has been utilized by Democratic and GOP federal administrations in the past, and by governors of both parties.

Misuse of National Guard

However, in their letter to President Biden, LULAC’s leaders said that deploying guard troops and other state assistance represents a misuse, running counter to a state’s Emergency Management Assistance Compact, which is an agreement that allows one jurisdiction to send assistance to another.

The letter said: “Mr President, as commander in chief, you can issue an order blocking the deployment of troops. If you won’t do that, we request that you deploy more federal troops to defend the rights and lives of Hispanic Americans on the border.

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