this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2024
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169
Why isn’t the Biden administration suing Texas for taking over the job of Border Patrol? (www.nbcnews.com)
submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) by gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world
34 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

The Biden administration has not sued. It did win a Supreme Court ruling that it could take down the razor wire that Texas has deployed in Shelby Park and elsewhere, which the administration said has led to drowning deaths among migrants. It has now cut razor wire in some sections of the border, but not in Shelby Park, which it can’t access.

Three Biden administration officials said the Supreme Court’s recent razor wire ruling was a win in federal government’s fight with Texas over Shelby Park, but they concede it does not explicitly give control of the area back to Border Patrol.

...

The three Biden administration officials told NBC News they do not want a confrontation between Border Patrol and Texas National Guard, but they still consider legal action a tool they might deploy. Shortly after Texas started blocking the Border Patrol from accessing Shelby Park, a mother and two children drowned while crossing the Rio Grande. The officials say they might have been saved if Border Patrol had been able to operate its equipment to surveil the river and respond to migrants in distress.

For now, however, optics mean the administration is holding fire, said a former Department of Homeland Security official. The official said that between the fight to pass a border bill, defend Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in an impeachment fight, and other lawsuits challenging Texas, taking on the Republican-led state would ignite another fire at a time when the administration wants to appear tougher on border security.

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240207121746/https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/biden-administration-lawsuit-texas-abbott-border-patrol-rcna137565

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[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 73 points 9 months ago (1 children)

The three Biden administration officials told NBC News they do not want a confrontation between Border Patrol and Texas National Guard, but they still consider legal action a tool they might deploy.

This is only an issue because Biden hasn't activated title 10 to place them under federal orders...

The administration's excuse for not taking action, is they haven't taken prerequisite actions. While refusing to take the prerequisite actions.

Ignoring this makes it worse. Every day Biden refuses to activate them, it because just a little less likely they'll all listen when he eventually does it.

This shit never works, and this is exactly how civil war 1 started.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 25 points 9 months ago (2 children)

There's not going to be a civil war. Texas couldn't even get enough warm bodies on the front lines.

[–] gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world 31 points 9 months ago (2 children)

There's not going to be a civil war

We keep saying this, but the fact of the matter is the federal government has lost control of part its territory to the state of Texas. I don't think we're there yet, but I also think it's a really fuzzy line, and we're definitely headed in the wrong direction towards it.

front lines.

I don't think a 21st century civil War would have those, it would be a lot of guerilla warfare and nobody will definitively win or lose for a very long time, we'll just keep seeing headlines about another attack another explosion etc etc

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 19 points 9 months ago (1 children)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles

We've already had wars like this in history, and I'm a little shocked this isn't brought up more often. When the citizens with "differences" all live amongst each other and are not geographically separated, it becomes a real shitshow, real fast.

[–] Ferrous@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Nope.

More money = more drones = more power = undefeatable.

/s obviously, but it is maddening to hear people talk about modern civil wars as if they're fought like the American revolutionary war: huge fronts of soldiers walking toward each other, where more bodies and resources were more indicative of a strong force.

That line of thinking went out the window 100 years ago. The sheer might of the US army does not mean as much when it takes just one disgruntled Texan to shoot critical power transformers, take a government official's child hostage, blow up rail lines, etc..

The idea that the American army is an unbeatable force because of our money expenditure is nothing more than American exceptionalism, and I'd encourage believers of that line of thinking to learn about modern guerilla warfare.

[–] jmp242@sopuli.xyz 3 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I fully expect that the rest of the US, assuming they still acted in concert, could occupy Texas indefinitely, but it would be like Iraq and would be a huge cost in all sorts of ways. They bigger thing is I kind of doubt the rest of the red states would want to support that effort, and many of the blue states frankly would be happy to see Texas go and stop screwing up so much stuff while costing federal dollars.

[–] gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

I fully expect that the rest of the US, assuming they still acted in concert, could occupy Texas indefinitely, but it would be like Iraq and would be a huge cost in all sorts of ways.

Exactly

many of the blue states frankly would be happy to see Texas go and stop screwing up so much stuff while costing federal dollars.

Perhaps, but they'd be really short sighted then, because Texas would just become the Afghanistan to our Pakistan, e.g. where terrorist assholes flee to after launching attacks in Pakistan

If we really get to this point, it's going to be bad choices and worse choices and just a lot of needless suffering and death

[–] Zaktor@sopuli.xyz 2 points 9 months ago

They'll welcome us as liberators!

[–] superduperenigma@lemmy.world 7 points 9 months ago

I don't think we're there yet, but I also think it's a really fuzzy line

The really scary problem is that it's most likely a line we won't recognize until after it's been crossed. It's possible we've already crossed the line and are simply waiting for it to get out of control.

[–] Jaderick@lemmy.world 19 points 9 months ago (1 children)

That’s why they banned abortion, so they can get the warm bodies 16 years from now.

[–] DigitalTraveler42@lemmy.world 9 points 9 months ago

They want young, dumb cannon fodder/slave(-ish) labor.

[–] Zaktor@sopuli.xyz 34 points 9 months ago (4 children)

I frankly question needing the court at all. This isn't a confusing case of constitutional law in need of clarification. The federal government owns the border and anyone trying to stop them should be arrested.

The official said that between the fight to pass a border bill, defend Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in an impeachment fight

Ok, since these two fires have extinguished themselves...

...ignite another fire at a time when the administration wants to appear tougher on border security.

So tough they're backing down and letting a state handle it? Right now they couldn't even get to a starving asylum seeker in that area to preemptively expel them. Backing down when someone takes your shit and maybe considering possibly asking someone else to tell them not to isn't projecting "toughness".

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 40 points 9 months ago (2 children)

FDR once activated the National Guard to seize a company and literally drag the CEO out of his office because the CEO refused to agree to a collective bargaining agreement...

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/fdr-seizes-control-of-montgomery-ward

Biden won't activate the National Guard to stop them from acting against a supreme court order.

We need more FDR democrats and less neoliberals.

[–] NoIWontPickaName@kbin.social 13 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Give me another Roosevelt, Teddy or Franklin, I’ll vote for them in a heartbeat.

One protected nature, the other the nation.

Fucking FDR was so popular he made the two term limit to ensure no one else could control the country that long

[–] ripcord@lemmy.world 7 points 9 months ago

He was the cause of the two term limit, but he didn't propose or push it or anything. Otherwise, yeah.

[–] tux@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Yeah, not what we want to be supporting. The Posse Comitatus act is there for a reason. I'd rather we don't start supporting use of the federal military as law enforcement.

And I hate to say it, but pretty sure the reason they haven't been activated federally is because they're worried calling that bluff might not work out well and escalate the confrontation, potentially leading to something worse.

Frankly this is awful. But also something manufactured to sound a lot worse. From a states rights perspective this isn't that different from states legalizing marijuana while it's federally controlled and illegal.

[–] Zaktor@sopuli.xyz 9 points 9 months ago

That would only be true if the state then sent armed agents to prevent the FBI from arresting a pot dealer. Having different rules is vastly different from claiming territory and excluding the federal government.

[–] gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world 10 points 9 months ago

So tough they're backing down and letting a state handle it?

There is so much about this that pisses me off, but yes, this right here is so insane I can't stop fixating on it. The goddamned idiot political consultants running the White House are seeing all these polls come in where voters are worrying about border security and don't trust the Democratic party to handle crime on the southern border, and their response is to let Greg Abbott openly commit crimes on the southern border and brag about it, because at the end of the day things like "toughness" and "border security" and "law and order" just mean doing whatever the loud angry white dipshits in charge want to do and fucking over brown people, even under a Democratic administration.

[–] MotoAsh@lemmy.world 9 points 9 months ago

Well you see, what you're missing is a spinectomy. It's required to become a Democrat. The worst these spineless losers can muster is the threat of legal action... while people are literally dying.

Republicans might be evil, but Democrats CHOOSE to aid them in tacit ways. They are, in fact, just as culpable.

[–] admiralteal@kbin.social -3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Presuming that the administration doesn't really want to do any liberalization at the border (a very safe assumption), what is the actual victory condition of escalation the confrontation here?

I really want everyone to think very carefully about the counterfactual here. What's to be gained by going full scorched earth against Texas? What's the political or practical benefit to going in and arresting government employees / Texas national guardsman who are acting according to orders of the governor?

Texas isn't going to handle the border any better than the feds did. They will almost certainly handle it worse, and look like assholes and monsters while doing it. They'll prove the administration right that the border is hard and these "simple" solutions are idiotic and ineffective. Denying fed access is unquestionably illegal and frankly seditious/secessionary. Even the people defending them know and agree that it is a bad look for a state that is begging for federal aid to be simultaneously refusing federal aid.

On the flip side, if the feds feed into the New Civil War politics by escalating or even turning violent against Texas, the entire Confederacy will close ranks and use that momentum to likely win elections. That's what Abbot wants. That's WHY he is making this very public provocation. If you actually look at the hotspot here, you'll see that the actual "disputed" area is basically just one fucking park. It's barely anything.

The controversy here is both literally and figuratively borderline inconsequential. It's just a big, stupid political trap. "That's nice, hun" and waiting for them to wear themselves out is the correct response to it.

[–] Zaktor@sopuli.xyz 10 points 9 months ago

Enforcing federal supremacy is neither scorched earth nor of negligible value. And I pointed out how muddling around and backing down makes Biden look weak.

All this talk about Republican traps is the same dumb shit where Democrats continually backed down from Trump because they thought he was some sort of political mastermind and any action would just be playing into his hands. The idea that the masterstroke for Democrats to just sit back and let the electorate come to the obvious conclusion that they're the adults in the room is just an excuse for baked in cowardice. They've done this time and again and it never works out. People think they're out of touch and dawdling and this is just a silly game while the Republicans are left to control the narrative, ratchet up to the next level of provocation, and look tough during troubled times.

Abbot isn't some sort of political mastermind. These guys aren't geniuses, they've got stupid playbooks they're almost forced to follow because they're competing to be the dumbest idiot of the dumb-dumb party and the moment they step out of line their lunatics fall on them. The only reason it works is because they're almost never confronted with power.

And again, this is a convenient time when both the right political move and the right governmental move are the same thing. The federal government needs to shut this down yesterday. They have supremacy over the border and a call to allied states to send troops is blatantly rebellious. States can't be allowed to play at rebellion, because when you let that grow you get closer and closer to the real thing. They're just being performative blowhards, until they aren't.

[–] FluffyPotato@lemm.ee 17 points 9 months ago

I'm not overly familiar on how the US works but if the mayor of a county starts doing shit at the border here they would be arrested and most likely charged with treason because they have zero authority over the border.

Something like this actually happened here back before my country wasn't in NATO and Russia tried to pull the breakaway region bullshit in Viru county. Some Russian stodge got into power and held a referendum to join Russia which quickly led to them being in prison and a lot of Russian citizens being deported who took part in that.

[–] originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com 16 points 9 months ago

because biden the conservative is trying to conserve the politics of yesteryear by playin nice in the face of fascists.

im sure that path will work out just groovy

[–] bedrooms@kbin.social 15 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Biden says legal actions, but shouldn't he stop playing nice with the supreme court in the first place?

Edit: I mean that maybe he can do things like targeting their patrons, banning gifts etc.