Patterico's Pontifications

6/13/2014

Texas Attorney General Wants to Protect Border with State Law Enforcement

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:49 am



Here is Greg Abbott’s letter to the Secretary of Homeland Security.

Dear Secretary Johnson,

Texas is currently dealing with an extraordinary influx of unaccompanied minors illegally crossing our long international border with Mexico. With the Border Patrol’s focus shifted to this crisis, we have grave concerns that dangerous cartel activity, including narcotics smuggling and human trafficking, will go unchecked because Border Patrol resources are stretched too thin. Securing the U.S.-Mexico border is the federal government’s responsibility. Because that simply is not happening, the State of Texas is seeking emergency funding to help support state-based border security initiatives.

In the Texas Rio Grande Valley sector alone, the U. S. Border Patrol made more than 160,000 apprehensions between October 2013 and May 2014, an increase of 70 percent over the same period the year before. Authorities arrested 47,017 unaccompanied minors illegally crossing the border between October and May, up 92 percent from the same period a year earlier. More than two-thirds of these arrests—33,470— were in the Rio GrandeValley sector. A draft Border Patrol memorandum estimates that number could reach 90,000 in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30.

This crisis has been accelerated by federal government policies that, as U.S. District Judge Andrew S. Hanen recently wrote, are “rewarding criminal conduct instead of enforcing the current laws.” Federal government policies that release unauthorized immigrants from custody with notices to appear in court, and that reunite minors apprehended alone in the U.S. illegally with family members already present in the country, only encourages the continued influx of unaccompanied minors that has helped create this urgent situation on our southwestern border.

I am appealing directly to you for immediate assistance with border security operations along the Texas-Mexico border. The influx of child immigrants has so overwhelmed the U.S. Border Patrol that federal agents are devoting time and resources to the humanitarian aspects of the influx. Therefore, we are concerned federal authorities are not available to secure the border and successfully stop cross-border criminal activity.

The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) has a proven track record of interdicting, intercepting and disrupting the criminal operations of transnational gangs and international drug cartels—including illegal smuggling operations by those criminal organizations. The Texas DPS is prepared to swiftly launch a significant and proven border security operation once funding is available.

Right now, Abbott is seeking federal funds to pay for this. What if the funds are denied? That’s where is gets interesting. What if Abbott decides to employ state resources to defend a border that the federal government is clearly taking no steps to protect?

Obama can run to court for an order, arguing that protecting the border is a federal job. But as Abbott notes above, at least one federal judge in Texas does not believe the government is doing that job. Indeed, the judge accuses Homeland Security of completing the cartels’ criminal conspiracy to smuggle children across the border. (Keep reading; he really does!)

In the Washington Times, Ernest Istook had a piece on Tuesday about Judge Hanen’s order, and it’s worth your time:

The Department of Homeland Security, instead of enforcing our border security laws, actually assisted the criminal conspiracy [of child-smuggling] in achieving its illegal goals,” writes a federal judge in a court order.

U.S. District Judge Andrew S. Hanen in Brownsville, Texas, issued the order in December. It explains and condemns how today’s crisis was created by President Barack Obama’s laxity and refusal to enforce our immigration laws. . . [A] s Judge Hanen’s order states: “Time and again this court has been told by representatives of the government and the defense that cartels control the entire smuggling process … the government is not only allowing [those paying the child-smugglers] to fund the illegal and evil activities of these cartels, but is also inspiring them to do so.”

“The DHS policy is as logical as taking illegal drugs or weapons that it has seized from smugglers and delivering them to the criminals who initially solicited their illegal importation. Legally, this situation is no different,” he wrote.

Oh, come on, Judge Hanen. The Obama Administration would never allow illegal weapons to be delivered to the drug cartels.

Judge Hanen described that the pattern is the same in other cases: “In each case, the DHS completed the criminal conspiracy, instead of enforcing the laws of the United States, by delivering the minors to the custody of the parent illegally living in the United States.”

This order sounds astonishing, and has new relevance given the extraordinary influx of children at the border. I’ll be looking into obtaining a copy of this order and telling you more about it. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: Courtesy of reader “Dave” comes a link to the judge’s opinion.

I note that Power Line did a great post about this in December, when the order came out.

This is probably all worth a separate post.

22 Responses to “Texas Attorney General Wants to Protect Border with State Law Enforcement”

  1. Ding.

    Patterico (9c670f)

  2. Funding aside, the major problem I see with state authorities enforcing the border without federa license is the Fourth Amendment. Will they have the border exception?

    nk (dbc370)

  3. Has HBO’s – THE SECOND CIVIL WAR (1997) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120086/ – arrived?

    IDIOCRACY – (2006) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/ – surely has – and WE is liv’n it. GLZ.

    Gary L. Zerman (df7f8e)

  4. the department of homeland security is a fascist monstrosity what never should’ve been created

    america is weaker and lesser and more the piteous for it

    happyfeet (8ce051)

  5. Amazing, especially the statements by the Judge. Also, nk, would the Fourth Amendment be involved if all Texas does is turn away people at the border?

    Dave (8c79bc)

  6. Here is a link to the Judge’s Order that was included in the Istook article that Patterico linked to in his post. Be warned, however, that the link doesn’t open the Order in your browser. Instead, it downloads the Order to your computer.

    Dave (8c79bc)

  7. Doesn’t Texas have an official “Organized Militia” that is a step below the NG?
    Of course, the roadblock is always funding to pay to deploy these forces.

    askeptic (8ecc78)

  8. askeptic,

    The Texas DPS has several special units that defend the border, including the Ranger Reconnaissance Unit set up by Gov. Perry in 2009. In 2011, the Discovery Channel aired a TV show about the Unit called Texas Drug Wars.

    Dave (8c79bc)

  9. The federal government’s basic duties are disintegrating, leaving only room for their role in hectoring, repressing and spying on the citizenry.

    Kevin M (b357ee)

  10. 9- But do they need $3,500,000,000,000.00 +/- to nag us?

    askeptic (8ecc78)

  11. Two.and.one.half.more.years.

    How bad can it get? The rot seems to be accelerating. I used to worry if China would go after Taiwan; now I worry if Russia will go after Alaska.

    Kevin M (b357ee)

  12. But do they need $3,500,000,000,000.00 +/- to nag us?

    Part of that is to pay the nag-enforcers.

    Kevin M (b357ee)

  13. No. Texas has no authority to seal the national border. It does have authority to stop, detain, and investigate possible criminality based on reasonable suspicion. With the border exception, it can have strategic checkpoints and prowl cars as much as fifty miles inside the border and do random checks. without specific suspicion.

    nk (dbc370)

  14. Arizona already tried this with SB 1070. They lost in court and were ostracized for trying.

    Perhaps it’ll be allowable with legal nuance.

    DejectedHead (a094a6)

  15. 3DS Emulateur est un émulateur de console Nintendo
    3DS sur PC. Pour cette 3ème version il y a
    déjà plusieurs jeux 3DS jouable, et plusieurs jeux sont compatible entièrement (tels que Mario
    Kart 7, Pokemon X/Y …).

    Cette émulateur est le premier à permettre aux
    utilisateurs d’essayer le véritable effet 3D !

    Un grand nombre de personnes connaissent la 3DS. L’émulateur 3DS
    est un programme simple à prendre en main vous permettant de jouer aux
    jeux 3DS sur votre ORDINATEUR.

    Cette émulateur est un logiciel gratuit que la majorité des joueurs doivent détenir en leurs possession !

    Grâce à lui vous pourrez jouer à la Nintendo 3DS sur
    votre pc.

    Contrairement à d’autre émulateur, celui-ci est dézonné, il offre donc de jouer aux jeux provenant de toutes
    les région du monde sans problème (Japon, Europe, Amérique…).

    Lors du premier lancement de l’émulateur 3DS vous allez pouvoir modifier la
    résolution de l’écran. Par défaut celle-ci seras de 800/240 (2x 400/240 par œil) et
    la résolution de l’écran du bas seras de 320*240 pixels.
    Vous pouvez changer cette résolution en revanche
    cela risque de rendre l’écran plus pixeliser.

    Une fois que la configuration de l’emulateur 3ds [Kelly] seras terminer vous allez pouvoir
    jouer aux roms 3DS et aux roms DS.

    Emulateur 3DS : http://www.wat.tv/video/emulateur-3ds-emu3ds-0-2-fr-6pxvv_6pxvt_.html

    Kelly (3a1812)

  16. Why not put a bounty on the children and let bounty hunters do the job. Double if the girl is pregnant.

    bounty hunter (59dccd)

  17. Buh-bye, again, Perry. Seek help.

    JD (a101d6)

  18. Perry,

    Don’t you enjoy living at the Delaware Home for the Aged ?
    I hear the shuffleboard tournament is top notch, and that they serve clam chowder daily.
    So why is it that you’re so angry at America ?

    Elephant Stone (5c2aa0)

  19. French spam? While Nintendo is probably illegal in France, imagine the French allowing a linguistic freak like “Pokemon”(Japanese derived from the English Pocket Monster) into the pure French lexicon, the spam could be from Haiti or Canada.

    On topic, been done before and failed. Immigration is considered part of foreign policy and the US Constitution gives foreign policy to the President. I’m not sure why it is foreign policy since immigration doesn’t take place until someone gets into the US at which point it should be a domestic issue, but it is.

    max (4fdf98)

  20. UPDATE: Courtesy of reader “Dave” comes a link to the judge’s opinion.

    I note that Power Line did a great post about this in December, when the order came out.

    This is probably all worth a separate post.

    Patterico (9c670f)

  21. Tap, tap, tap. Is this thing on?

    Patterico (9c670f)

  22. Any one of these scandals is such a big deal. And yet virtually all of them are dismissed by not only the MSM, but a society that used to get upset about corruption. After a while, it becomes exhausting enough that the impact of yet another huge scandal is simply to tune out even more. That plays into the hands of the corrupt, I realize, but human nature is tough to overcome sometimes.

    Dustin (7f67e8)


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