Governor Greg Abbott issued a statement on Texas’ constitutional right to defend and protect itself.
“The Executive Branch of the United States has a constitutional duty to enforce federal laws protecting States, including immigration laws on the books right now,” reads the statement. “President Biden has instructed his agencies to ignore federal statutes that mandate the detention of illegal immigrants. The failure of the Biden Administration to fulfill the duties imposed by Article IV, § 4 has triggered Article I, § 10, Clause 3, which reserves to this State the right of self-defense. For these reasons, I have already declared an invasion under Article I, § 10, Clause 3 to invoke Texas’s constitutional authority to defend and protect itself. That authority is the supreme law of the land and supersedes any federal statutes to the contrary.”
Read the Governor’s full statement below.
“The federal government has broken the compact between the United States and the States. The Executive
Branch of the United States has a constitutional duty to enforce federal laws protecting States, including
immigration laws on the books right now. President Biden has refused to enforce those laws and has even
violated them. The result is that he has smashed records for illegal immigration.
Despite having been put on notice in a series of letters—one of which I delivered to him by hand—President
Biden has ignored Texas’s demand that he perform his constitutional duties.
• President Biden has violated his oath to faithfully execute immigration laws enacted by Congress.
Instead of prosecuting immigrants for the federal crime of illegal entry, President Biden has sent his
lawyers into federal courts to sue Texas for taking action to secure the border.
• President Biden has instructed his agencies to ignore federal statutes that mandate the detention of
illegal immigrants. The effect is to illegally allow their en masse parole into the United States.
• By wasting taxpayer dollars to tear open Texas’s border security infrastructure, President Biden has
enticed illegal immigrants away from the 28 legal entry points along this State’s southern border—
bridges where nobody drowns—and into the dangerous waters of the Rio Grande.
Under President Biden’s lawless border policies, more than 6 million illegal immigrants have crossed our
southern border in just 3 years. That is more than the population of 33 different States in this country. This
illegal refusal to protect the States has inflicted unprecedented harm on the People all across the United
States.
James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and the other visionaries who wrote the U.S. Constitution foresaw that
States should not be left to the mercy of a lawless president who does nothing to stop external threats like
cartels smuggling millions of illegal immigrants across the border. That is why the Framers included both
Article IV, § 4, which promises that the federal government “shall protect each [State] against invasion,” and
Article I, § 10, Clause 3, which acknowledges “the States’ sovereign interest in protecting their borders.”
Arizona v. United States, 567 U.S. 387, 419 (2012) (Scalia, J., dissenting).
The failure of the Biden Administration to fulfill the duties imposed by Article IV, § 4 has triggered Article I,
§ 10, Clause 3, which reserves to this State the right of self-defense. For these reasons, I have already
declared an invasion under Article I, § 10, Clause 3 to invoke Texas’s constitutional authority to defend and
protect itself. That authority is the supreme law of the land and supersedes any federal statutes to the
contrary. The Texas National Guard, the Texas Department of Public Safety, and other Texas personnel are
acting on that authority, as well as state law, to secure the Texas border.”
