Fixin' To Get Around To It

.@GovAbbott news of the day: Texas is going to build a wall and jail lots of people and taxpayers and donors are going to pay for it https://t.co/vsUMzGJM4m

— Elizabeth Findell (@efindell) June 17, 2021

I heard on NPR this morning that Abbott is taking the $250 million to "start" the border wall (by "start" he means put somebody in charge of doing some planning; in Texas-ese, he's "fixin' to get around to it." That means don't hold your breath; in fact, sit back and open another beer, you ain't gonna miss anything.*)

Which, of course, is a genius idea as hurricane season returns to the Gulf, and 45% of the state is suffering drought conditions.  We'll deplete state funds and get the Feds to make up the slack, right, Dan Crenshaw?

Meanwhile we'll crowdfund the thing, because that worked so well for Steve Bannon, who raised about $25 million for the border wall, which, had he kept it rather than pocketed it, might have paid for 1 mile of Trump's wall; under ideal conditions.

This is Texas; we never have ideal conditions.  For one thing, how far back from the river is Abbott gonna put this thing?

Intense rain over the weekend from Hurricane Hanna left gaping holes and waist-deep cracks on the banks of the Rio Grande that threaten the long-term stability of a privately funded border fence that is already the focus of lawsuits over its proximity to the river in South Texas.

The damage comes at the start of what is projected to be an active hurricane season, which runs through Nov. 30.

Engineering experts who reviewed photos of the jagged cracks caused by the weekend’s storms said the damage reinforces what many have long said: Building and maintaining a border fence so close to the river poses serious challenges.

ProPublica and The Texas Tribune previously reported that just months after completion, the private fence built by Fisher Industries, a North Dakota-based company, was showing signs of erosion that threatened its stability and could cause it to topple into the river if not fixed.

“It’s going to be a never-ending battle. You are always going to be fighting erosion when you are that close to the river,” said Adriana E. Martinez, a professor and geomorphologist at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville who has studied the impact of the border barriers in South Texas.

That was late July a year ago.  Conditions on the Rio Grande have not improved; and much of the land on the Texas border is in private hands.  Most of those private landowners don't want a border wall on their property.  Why do you think Abbott told Biden to give back the property Trump condemned so he could build a wall?  Nobody in Texas likes eminent domain, as a general rule.  Abbott wants the feds to give it back, and then he wants those landowners to give it, gratis, to Texas, so Abbott can build his wall.   There's a reason the wall cost more in Texas than Arizona, and it has to do with eminent domain.

Why is Abbott doing this?  I think it's because he has his eyes on the White House in 2024, and he's fighting the campaign before last, the one where Trump was, as an administrator and office-holder, more unknown than Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter.  He wants to out-Trump DeSantis, the original Trump "mini-me."  Not sure this is gonna work for him, though; and there are politicians closer to home to fear, if Abbott simply wants to be governor again.  As the Houston Chronicle points out:

The fact that Abbott has even less chance of halting the flow of asylum seekers than did his bloviating, wall-building idol during four years of White House ineptitude, matters not. Nor does the dubious legal justification for using state resources and taxpayer dollars to enforce federal immigration law. For Abbott, actually dealing with a national dilemma is of secondary importance.

The more immediate concern is a potential challenge from the rightist fringes next year by former state Sen. Don Huffines, a Dallas Republican who, if elected governor, has promised to finish President Donald Trump’s border-wall construction in Texas.

“We will completely shut down the border until the crisis is solved and eliminate all taxpayer-funded subsidies to illegal aliens,” Huffines said, lapsing into his own tough-Texan tweet mode. “I am not afraid to take on the federal government.”

Yeah, Don; they have tanks and an army.  What do you got? Maybe you want to talk to Crenshaw about the role of the federal government.  My guess is you can't "take 'em on" and take their money, too.

Nor is he afraid to steal a perfectly good campaign gimmick that has proven effective for at least one long-shot candidate in recent memory. Any day now, Abbott will announce that the Texas Wall will be beautiful and that Mexico will pay for it.

Abbott, who boasts a massive war chest and Trump’s own endorsement, apparently still fears he’ll become flotsam himself if he doesn’t respond to Huffines..

Abbott’s border wall pronouncement — he promised details in a few days — is cynical, short-sighted, and irresistibly simple for people to understand.

In other words, it’s the exact opposite of Vice President Kamala Harris’ approach in visiting Guatemala and Mexico as part of the Biden administration’s effort to craft pragmatic and humane border-security policy that addresses the root causes of migration and not just the current symptoms. “Do not come,” she admonished would-be asylum-seekers.

The admonition — for which Harris received her own admonition from the leftist fringes who claimed she was insensitive — was stark, sensible and desperately needed at a time when smugglers are exploiting confusion about the new president’s policies and spreading misinformation that America is encouraging migration.

The truth is that, after decades of inchoate border policy and four years of Trumpian chaos and cruelty, this nation is poorly equipped at the moment to handle huge waves of asylum-seekers or others seeking entry. It’s a problem that can’t be resolved immediately, with or without a wall.

There’s no denying that we have border problems. Arrests at the border have increased since President Joe Biden took office. U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported roughly 180,000 encounters with persons crossing the Southwest border illegally in May, the highest monthly total yet.

Numbers are decreasing for migrant teenagers, for children crossing without parents and for family groups, while numbers for single adult migrants are increasing, with more than 121,000 apprehended last month. Most get “expelled” to Mexico, and many try again, numerous times. Nearly 40 percent of those apprehended in May had already been stopped by border officials at least once before in the past 12 months. With our immigration system so backed up, many crossing the border no longer fear legal consequences or jail time if they are caught. A growing number are arriving from nations outside Central America and Mexico.

Harris’ visit was an acknowledgment that helping improve conditions in Central America is a key component of any serious immigration reform and border security effort.

As Rice University political scientist and Latin American studies chair Mark Jones pointed out in a 2018 Chronicle op-ed, the U.S. has to acknowledge a modicum of responsibility for the deplorable conditions forcing citizens to flee from Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala.

After all, America’s sordid interventions over the past 75 years, including our propping up of dictators and toppling of democratically elected leaders, contributed mightily to the modern-day mess.

Simply as a matter of self-interest (not to mention any humanitarian impulse we might feel), we should help fix the plague of gang violence, government corruption and ineptitude, and lack of economic opportunity in those countries.

I don't know about that highlighted part.  Maybe we shouldn't mention U.S. culpability for problems on our own border.  That's getting terribly close to Ilhan Omar territory, and we know we can't allow that.  Even Nancy Pelosi said so.

“Even if one believes we owe these countries nothing, the only realistic way to significantly reduce the flow of unauthorized Central American migrants is to improve conditions in their homelands,” Jones wrote.

No sensible American wants open borders. No sensible American wants thousands of desperate men, women and children showing up at our door after long, dangerous treks across Mexico atop railroad boxcars. No one we know wants vicious cartels smuggling illegal drugs into this country or merciless traffickers transporting human beings.

We presume that what most Americans want is a safe, secure border combined with immigration policies that are reasonable and fair. Working with Mexico and Central American nations is an integral part of a multi-pronged approach toward that end.

Abbott announced last week he’ll be working with Arizona. He said he had signed an interstate compact with that state’s Gov. Doug Ducey, a fellow Republican, to resolve the border crisis, and he called on other states to do the same. The results will be negligible.

Need one add, this is why immigration is a federal, not a state, responsibility?

The governor ought to be signing some sort of “compact” with the United States Congress and the White House, agreeing to participate in a bipartisan effort directed toward resolving our long-term immigration and border security issues. He ought to lay down the border wall trowel and take on a truly tough construction task: comprehensive immigration reform.

It’s tough, we realize, for a Republican still clinging for dear career to Trump’s wayward coattails to consider bipartisan cooperation, but in the spirit of his fellow Texans — Sam Houston, Audie Murphy and Barbara Jordan come to mind — the governor needs to remember that truly tough Texans facing a truly tough challenge don’t just talk big.

They don’t pander. They don’t pass off partisan shtick for smart policy. They grab the challenge by the horns. In short, they don’t follow; they lead.

Is it any wonder the GOP wants to punish Houston every chance it gets?   The voting reform bill (which failed at the last minute) included many provisions aimed solely at Harris County (which is Houston).  The General Land Office, run by George P. Bush who now wants to be Texas AG, recently refused to share federal funds with Houston related to Harvey relief.  Ted Cruz lives here, but headed for Cancun as soon as his lights went out.

As I keep saying, this is all about waving a stone and telling the rubes (i.e., the GOP base) that the holder of the stone is keeping the elephants away.  Trump's border wall and immigration policies never did shit, either, but the minute Biden took his hand off that Bible the border apparently collapsed and the flood of brown people was on.  It's never about reality, it's only about narratives.  I still want to see Abbott how maintains that the border is the problem, or CRT in schools (when school is out), but we have no problem with our power grid (and it isn't even August yet)**.  Hell, even Ross Ramsey has started to figure out that might be a political issue for some time to come.

May you live in interesting times.

(*In my feckless youth (I never gave, nor got, a feck as a youth) Baptist preachers thought it the height of drollery to hand church members wooden pieces labeled "round to-its," as a way of goading them to stop procrastinating.  The were round, of course.)

(**I've seen an accurate pictorial of Texas weather:  it's a Texas map, burning at the Gulf Coast edge.  That's "Spring."  "Summer" shows the fire has advanced into the state.  "August" shows the map consumed in flames. "Winter" is the burnt up map, the fire extinguished.  It's about right, especially "August."  As I say, that's still to come.  But no worries; Gov. Absent assures us the electrical grid is the best it's ever been, even though most of the changes the Lege made won't become law until September, and changes won't begin to show until this time next year.  I'm sure in the meantime we'll all be dazzled with his relentless dog 'n' pony shows around the state, as he tries his hand at mini-Trump rallies disguised as bill signings.  Too bad he runs out of those by the end of June....)