Will Texas Deport Illegal Aliens?

By Wayne Allensworth

From VDare’s “Washington Watcher”:

Texas appears to be ready to fight Traitor Joe Biden’s Great Replacement invasion. Lone Star Republican lawmakers have drafted legislation that would create the state’s own border patrol and make illegally re-entering into the country a felony.

Texas Rep. Matt Schaefer, R-Tyler, has filed a bill that would create a “Border Protection Unit” to  arrest and deport illegal aliens caught outside a port of entry. Under the proposed law, illegals trespassing on private property would face felony charges. Despite his invoking the invasion clauses of the U.S. and Texas Constitutions, Gov. Greg Abbott has previously made no effort to actually remove them from Texas soil (illegals were only escorted back to a port of entry).

Schaefer’s bill further proposes that Border Protection officers have “immunity from criminal and civil liability for any actions taken that are authorized” by the proposed law. The bill states that the unit chief could employ civilians with proper training who have not been convicted of a felony “to participate in unit operations and functions” as authorized by the governor.

A Texas Senate bill proposed by Brian Birdwell, R-Granbury, would jail illegals for one to two years for entering Texas a second time. If that person had a prior felony conviction, then he could receive a life sentence for a second illegal entry. Under current federal law, illegally entering the United States is a misdemeanor. If arrested a second time, the trespasser could be charged with a felony and banned from entering the U.S. for a certain period.

This is not the first time states have tried to take a hand in immigration enforcement. In 2010, Arizona adopted a state law that allowed police to arrest persons who did not have documentation showing their presence on American soil was legal, but that law was struck down by a 2012 Supreme Court ruling.

Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan has backed Schaefer’s House Bill 20, while Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, who presides over the Senate, has endorsed Birdwell’s proposal. The chances that the Supreme Court would rule in favor of the current Texas bills are better now than in 2012. If Texas legislators are serious about “repelling” the invasion, however, additional legislation must include sanctions on employers of illegals and banning them from receiving public benefits. What’s more, legislators must eventually consider two other sticky, and even more difficult, issues: legal immigration, and creating disincentives for leftists fleeing dysfunctional states from relocating to Texas, where they are likely to continue supporting policies that created dysfunction in the first place.

Nevertheless, Texas’ removing illegal aliens could foment a constitutional crisis, which may be necessary to galvanize resistance to the Globalist Leviathan and embolden other states to act similarly.

Efforts to defend the American Remnant, as I’ve observed, should be, first of all, state and local. Opposing mass immigration is the most important aspect of resistance to globalist and “woke” ideologies, but it is not the only one. A nascent and growing Middle American resistance is out there. Parents resist Critical Race Theory in schools. They attend school board meetings to oppose drag-queen story hours and pornographic books in the libraries. County sheriffs refuse to enforce gun control. Heritage groups who have defended American historical sites, and secession movements, aimed at separating from leftist states or major cities, have appeared. Indeed, a bill in the Texas legislature would create a committee “to investigate the possibility of Texas independence.” 

With all the focus on traditional “horse race” politics, this vast reservoir of potential American resistance has been overlooked. If a leader or leaders could organize and coordinate a grassroots movement, it could be a force to be reckoned with.

Chronicles contributor Wayne Allensworth is the author of  The Russian Question: Nationalism, Modernization, and Post-Communist Russia, and a novel, Field of Blood.