Governor Greg Abbott claims to be Catholic but obsessed with defiance about federal immigration law

Column: Texas’ defiance of federal rule echoes Southern segregationists ...echo opinion published in the Los Angeles Times:

Inept Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s years of defiance of federal rule has escalated to a standoff at the border with lives on the line. 

A Justice Department filing with the Supreme Court underscored the legal bankruptcy of Texas’ position as well as the high stakes of its intransigence.

Under his “Operation Lone Star” initiative, Abbott has unabashedly declared that the state will undertake wide-ranging efforts to prevent immigrants from crossing into Texas from Mexico and send them back if they do enter. He insists that “Texas has the sovereign authority to defend our borders.”

One small problem: It doesn’t. The Constitution unambiguously assigns regulation of immigration to the federal government. Federal law preempts state laws that purport to exercise immigration authority, and there is no serious argument to the contrary.

Texas immigrants helped through barbed wire

Texas’ attempts to suggest otherwise are tissue-thin. Its leading argument appears to be that the influx of migrants from Mexico triggers the Constitution’s invasion clause, which requires the federal government to protect the states against invasion, supposedly entitling the Lone Star State to take military action notwithstanding federal law.

Texas’ resistance to federal law has taken many forms and given rise to a series of lawsuits by the Biden administration. Texas has placed large buoys in the middle of the Rio Grande to impede crossing. It has fenced a large area along the river and prevented Border Patrol agents from entering critical areas. And it has enacted a law that purports to make illegal entry a state crime and give Texas power to deport migrants as of March.

But Texas does have one thing going for its broader border campaign: the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, which is by most accounts the most maverick of the 12 federal circuit courts.

Governor Greg Abbott fights migrants not welcome in Texas

The episode that prompted the Supreme Court filing arises from a Texas lawsuit that significantly upped the ante. In fact, the suit charges that the Border Patrol’s removal of concertina wire that Texas erected amounted to an “ongoing, unlawful practice which undermines [Texas’] border security efforts.”

The lawsuit borders on silliness. If the Constitution’s supremacy clause means anything, it’s that state law can’t be used to defeat a legitimate federal law enforcement function.

The U.S. District Court denied Texas’ motion for a preliminary injunction because, among other reasons, the U.S. has sovereign immunity against such a state suit. But the 5th Circuit entered an immediate “administrative stay” and then an injunction pending appeal that barred the U.S. government from interfering with the fencing except for medical emergencies. In a breathtakingly cursory statement, the court held that Texas wasn’t regulating the Border Patrol and that sovereign immunity therefore did not apply.

The U.S. government filed an emergency motion to vacate the injunction with the Supreme Court this month, pointing out that the 5th Circuit was “manifestly wrong” under the supremacy clause and sovereign immunity principles. It added that the court’s rationale would allow states to “seek to force the federal government to conform the implementation of federal immigration law to varying state-law regimes.”

This week’s filing was the Justice Department’s second supplemental memorandum to its emergency motion, an extreme rarity. It was prompted by an episode that tragically substantiated the federal government’s concerns about Texas’ interference: Three migrants drowned trying to cross the border Friday, and Texas National Guard troops refused to give the Border Patrol access to the scene. (Texas disputes aspects of the federal account but not that the Border Patrol was blocked from entering the area.)

The essential dynamic is clear: Abbott and Texas are determined to continue to defy federal law enforcement regardless of the Constitution and the consequences. Indeed, there is a Trumpian swagger to Abbott’s insistence on supplanting federal law enforcement because it supposedly isn’t getting the job done on his terms.

We have seen this kind of state-federal law enforcement standoff in the South before, most notably by segregationist governors such as Orval Faubus, who used the Arkansas National Guard to block Black students from integrating Little Rock Central High School in 1957. It took a concerted effort from the federal government and the federal courts to beat back that lawlessness.

Abbott’s refusal to recognize the supremacy of federal law is as bold and rank as we have seen. The key difference here is the lack of resolve to apply the Constitution among the 5th Circuit’s judges, about a third of whom are Trump appointees. Despite its conservatism, the Supreme Court has taken an increasing number of cases from the circuit — it has at least six on its current docket — and reversed it about three-quarters of the time. Given that the other most conservative appellate court is reversed about half as often, that suggests the 5th Circuit is not just far right but downright wacky.

The Texas dispute shows how former guy Trump’s depredations (plundering) have outlasted his (sick❗) rule. 

That’s because he managed to seed the courts with a cohort of judges who have little allegiance to the federal judiciary’s tradition of reinforcing the supremacy of federal law. Their corrosive impact will linger for a generation or more.

Harry Litman is the senior legal affairs columnist for the Opinion page, is a former U.S. attorney and deputy assistant attorney general.

Ebola response - follow the money

Ebola patients who find their way to early treatment appear to have a better chance of survival than those whose symptoms are already acute by the time they reach medical facilities. Even more of a correlation between Ebola and survival appears to be access to money to reimburse for state of the art treatment.

Fortunately, several Ebola patients who were American caregivers in Africa were able to survive the virus because they were air transported to US hospitals where preparations were made to care for them, in anticipation of the acuity of their illnesses. Their transportation and treatment were obviously expensive. 

Air transport of one ill patient to an exclusive hospital for the purpose of treating a disease, heretofore not seen before, is expensive. Nevertheless, these three particular patients recovered from the Ebola virus because, apparently, they received state of the art curative treatment. 

Evidently, the groups who sponsored these infected medical professionals when they were in Africa also paid for their recovery from Ebola.  

Of course, the Liberian man who was diagnosed with Ebola in Texas, named Mr. Duncan, didn't have a sponsor to pay for his care, when he presented with a fever at the Texas Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas. Instead of being immediately placed in isolation, Mr. Duncan was sent home. More than likely, Mr. Duncan was sent home because he didn't have enough money to pay for isolation care. More than likely, if Mr. Duncan had been sponsored by an international relief group, rather than visiting his family, he would have received isolation care immediately. Although my "more than likely" hypotheses are speculative, they're more than likely correct.

Mr. Duncan's health has deteriorated since he was finally admitted to Texas Presbyterian, after being sent home after his first visit. Meanwhile, between the time he first asked for care and when he was eventually admitted, dozens of people were exposed to his Ebola virus, meaning it's more than likely that those individuals are at risk for becoming ill. It's very difficult for me, as a nurse, to believe that Mr. Duncan's illness hasn't already infected at least one other person who he was in contact with while exhibiting a fever and symptoms of Ebola, before he was isolated. Incubation time for the virus is up to 21 days, or three full weeks.

Hopefully, Texas Presbyterian administrators should forget about who's paying for Mr. Duncan's intensive care while he's in isolation, but worry a lot about keeping him alive, whatever the cost. Otherwise, the alternative to Mr. Duncan surviving the Ebola virus ravaging his system is the potential for an infectious disease nightmare.  

Obviously, Mr. Duncan's care is expensive and more than likely much of its cost will never be reimbursed. In the event anyone in contact with Mr. Duncan becomes an Ebola patient, it's more than likely their care won't be fully reimbursed, either.

Texas is in a difficult situation regarding Mr. Duncan being the first Ebola patient diagnosed in the US. The Lone Star State of Texas is now the lonely ground zero site for Ebola in the U.S.  This is an embarrassment for the US and particularly for Texas. Nevertheless, the reality is, more than likely, if Mr. Duncan had money to pay for his care, much of this chaos and anxiety about Ebola in the US would have been preventable because he'd have been urgently isolated the minute he was assessed for being at risk. Yet, he wasn't aggressively treated, more than likely, because he couldn't pay for it.

Turning Texas blue - but the question remains: Why is Texas red?

It makes no sense for Texas to be a conservative, Republican "red" state when the demographics are decidedly descriptive of progressive constituencies. At one time, Texas was an independent country. The "Lone Star State" is the second most populated US state, after California, with a population heavily made up of transplants and immigrants, particularly people who've migrated to the state from adjacent Mexico.  

In comparison, California is a progressive state where the population is similar to the demographics described for Texas. Perhaps the Asian population in California makes the state's population somewhat different from those in Texas. 

Although both states have large immigrant populations, Texas is "red" while California is "blue".

Somehow, somewhere, Texas politics became ultra conservative. 

Although I'm certainly not an expert on Texas politics, it seems the Democrats somehow "lost" the state, after Governor Ann Richards was defeated, after one term, by the future Republican president of the US, George W. Bush. Yet, Democratic President Lyndon Johnson was also a Texan.

Where are those people who voted for Governor Ann Richards?
Surely, those who voted for Governor Ann Richards will support the current Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis.

Wendy Russell Davis (born Wendy Jean Russell,May 16, 1963) is an American lawyer and Democratic politician from Fort Worth, Texas.  On June 25, 2013, Davis held an 11 hour-long filibuster to block a measure which included more restrictive abortion regulations for Texas. Her filibuster played a major role in Senate Democrats' success in delaying passage of the bill beyond the midnight deadline for the end of the legislative session, though it ultimately passed in a second session. The filibuster brought Davis national attention.  In October 2013, she announced that she would run for governor in 2014 to succeed the retiring Republican Rick Perry.

It seems to me, if the immigrant populations and progressive women add to the voters who remain from those who voted for Governor Ann Richards, then Texas has a good chance of turning blue by electing Wendy Davis.

Why Texas turned conservative "red" is a mystery. Texas politics seems more about protecting gun owners rights and the death penalty than revenue sharing. Therefore, it seems logical that the progressive people who are the brunt of this misguided public policy should outnumber those who are obsessed with power to kill people rather than care for them.

It seems like conservative Texas politics has run its course.  

It's time for the state to return to its progressive heritage and elect Wendy Davis as governor. In the spirit of Governor Ann Richards, it's time to turn Texas blue.