Phil Williams Commentary: What's a state like Texas to do?

There is a major confrontation brewing right now on the southern border of the United States between the state of Texas and the federal government that is both predictable and avoidable. A confrontation that begs the question: What’s a state to do?

Practically speaking, what is a state to do when its own well-being is under threat and Washington, D.C., won’t assist?

Think back over your lifetime and try to remember any disaster declaration by any state governor that did not result in aid from the federal government. Every tornado, hurricane, winter storm, flood, or earthquake, when declared a disaster by the governor of any state, regardless of political affiliation, has always seen the federal government respond with all available resources to alleviate human suffering and ensure stability. Federal funds were always applied to immediately help displaced civilians find aid and comfort.

Regarding the border crisis, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas has done just that, and he has been rebuffed.

What we are witnessing on the southern border is one of the worst disasters to ever strike any state. The sheer magnitude of the human wave flooding our border communities is devastating ranches and farms, overwhelming municipal services, stretching law enforcement, wreaking havoc on local economies, overwhelming medical facilities, and injuring and killing innocent people. It is a disaster on a scale that we haven’t seen in our lifetimes.

Compare the cost in blood and treasure to the worst events on record: Hurricane Katrina caused the deaths of 1,390 people and over $125 billion in property damage. The attacks of 9/11 caused the deaths of 2,977 people.

In 2004, the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami caused the deaths of over 225,000 people. In 2010, a major earthquake hit the island nation of Haiti killing hundreds of thousands and leaving the country in ruins.

In each case, foreign or domestic, the U.S. government rushed to the disaster sites with aid, assistance and even military intervention. Congress established tax credits and special loan programs.

But not for Texas. Not on our southern border.

Under the Biden administration, a state can be sued if it merely tries to stanch the bleeding of illegal mass migration. The El Paso Times recently reported that 149 migrants died in the El Paso sector of the border the previous 12 months. Residents in southern New Mexico are said to be regularly “stumbling on the bodies in the desert.”

The International Order for Migration recently named the U.S.-Mexico border as the “world’s deadliest migration land route.” The Wall Street Journal reported in March 2023 that local officials in Eagle Pass, Texas, have to keep a refrigeration truck available for the bodies of migrants who drown in the Rio Grande. For fiscal year 2023, over 500 migrants died after being lured here by Biden’s policies.

Those are just the illegal migrant tolls. The physical and economic damage being wrought on the U.S. is no less devastating. In 2023, the Federation for American Immigration Reform posted a study indicating the overall cost of illegal immigration to U.S. taxpayers was in excess of $150 billion.

The Heritage Foundation reports that in 2023 the Border Patrol encountered thousands of illegals with prior violent criminal records, coupled with a 2021 Department of Justice report stating that 64% of federal arrests in recent years had been noncitizens despite only being 7% of the population. In 2022 alone, over 73,000 people in the U.S. died from fentanyl overdoses, more than double the combined three years before that — a drug that is largely trafficked over our southern border.

Again, what’s a state to do?

In the absence of meaningful federal assistance, the state of Texas has taken extraordinary steps to secure border regions with wire, walls and water barriers. The federal government removed those barriers, cut them down and sued Texas for putting them up.

Every governor swears an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States and of the state in which he or she serves. It is an oath, a sacred duty.

In consideration of that oath, this past week Texas hit the proverbial limit and invoked the Tenth Amendment in a big way. The governor declared that his National Guard would no longer allow the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol to work in part of Eagle Pass, Texas. The CBS affiliate in Austin reported that the Department of Homeland Security threatened to take “legal action” and examine “all other options”... whatever that means.

Over a decade ago, the Alabama Legislature passed landmark legislation designed to enforce federal immigration law at the state level. We were harangued, threatened, protested and doxed. We were also sued and watched as whole sections of the law were diced up by liberal judges.

As state leaders, we were ahead of our times and took some solace in knowing that we had done what we could. Seeing the current plight of Texas, I find myself wishing we were back to the lesser levels of devastation and disruption we saw during those Obama years.

So, the question remains: What’s a state to do?

Does the Tenth Amendment afford a state the right to defend its own borders? Arguably, yes. We are watching a confrontation unfold between Texas and the U.S. government that may in fact become one of the most dramatic legal challenges ever brought over the application of a state's right to support and defend its own interests in the wake of a disaster for which the federal government refuses to help, or even causes to happen. But Texas is not alone. Other states see their plight and have responded with aid.

Texas is back in the Alamo, doing what Texans do.

God bless Texas.

Phil Williams is a former state senator from District 10 (which includes Etowah County), retired Army colonel and combat veteran, and a practicing attorney. He previously served with the leadership of the Alabama Policy Institute in Birmingham. He currently hosts the conservative news/talk show Rightside Radio on multiple channels throughout north Alabama. The opinions expressed are his own.

This article originally appeared on The Gadsden Times: Phil Williams on the Texas border crisis and what a state should do