By: Heillie Santana, 12th grade

The United States has witnessed an increase in asylum-seekers, causing strain on local, state, and federal governments. Recently, this has led to tensions between the state of Texas and the United States federal government. Some have suggested that a potential civil war could be looming.

The entire conflict began in March of 2021 when Texas Governor Greg Abbott declared that the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) would crack down on illegal immigration and smuggling into the state. The operation was dubbed “Operation Lone Star.”

“The crisis at our southern border continues to escalate due to Biden administration policies that fail to secure the border and instead invite illegal immigration,” Abbott wrote in a statement. In the first few months of President Biden’s administration, the number of monthly encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border climbed from 72,000 to 101,000.

Over a year later, in July of 2022, the Texas Tribune reported, “DPS officials said that the DOJ was seeking to review whether Operation Lone Star violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin by institutions receiving federal funding.”

Then, almost a year later, Abbott defended the action of installing 60 miles of razor wire along the border as a means to deter migrants from entering the state. In a social media post, he stated that “Texas is not asking for permission” as the installation of the razor wire was approved by the federal government.

In June of 2023, Mexico sent a diplomatic memo to the United States regarding Abbott’s tactics of deterring or blocking migrants from entering the country. “The Mexican Government requested that the buoys mentioned, as well as the razor wire fencing, be removed from the channel of the Rio Grande due to obstruction and diversion of runoffs toward Mexican territory,” stated Mexico’s Secretary of Foreign Affairs. In the following month, the U.S. reiterated that it does not authorize Texas’s actions.

In that same month, a Texas state trooper, Nicholas Wingate, described in an email what he saw as “inhumane,” as he had been instructed to push migrants back into the river. “[U]pon encountering a group of 120 migrants on June 25 — including young children and nursing mothers — in Maverick County, a rural Texas border county,” The Associated Press reported, “he and another trooper were ordered to ‘push the people back into the water to go to Mexico.’ ” The AP also reported that “a 4-year-old girl attempting to cross through razor wire was ‘pressed back’ by Texas National Guard soldiers in accordance with orders and that the child later fainted from the heat.”

On July 23rd, the Justice Department sued Texas after it began deploying buoys (floating devices) into the river. The federal government cited humanitarian concerns, Texas not being granted permission to deploy the buoys, and other factors.

On December 18th, Abbott signed a bill criminalizing entry into Texas from Mexico. The following month, on January 11th, 2024, Texas seized control of river-adjacent Shelby Park in Eagle Pass. This move was met with dismay by the city’s mayor, who told the AP, “This is not something that we wanted. This is not something that we asked for as a city.”

Later in January, an appeal was granted on a 5-4 vote in the Supreme Court, allowing the federal government to remove the 60-mile razor wire at the border. Two days later, Abbott released a statement defending Texas’s authority. Despite the court’s decision, Texas law enforcement continued to put up the razor wire.

Many Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, have supported Texas’s authority in erecting the razor wire and other tactics used to deter or block people from entering the state. In a statement, President Joe Biden said, “What’s been negotiated would – if passed into law – be the toughest and fairest set of reforms to secure the border we’ve ever had in our country. It would give me, as President, new emergency authority to shut down the border when it becomes overwhelmed.”

Sources:https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/01/25/immigration-texas-federal-government/ Philip Bump, 2024