The slightly dramatic tensions at the Texas border raise suspicions that Republicans dug a hole for Biden in the early days of the election.
▲Data map: U.S. President Joe Biden. Photo/Xinhua News Agency
Text | Xu Lifan
According to overseas network citing Fox News and other US media reports, on January 27, local time, a shooting incident occurred at a military base in Texas (hereinafter referred to as "Texas") of the US military, and two soldiers fought with guns after a quarrel, resulting in one death and one injury.
The incident coincided with an escalating standoff between the Texas National Guard and federal law enforcement officers over border controls. The sound of gunfire at sensitive times and places has aroused widespread concern. Some netizens "associated" about this, whether this would be the first shot of Texas independence.
Although the gunfire in the Texas Barracks had nothing to do with border control, it is an indisputable fact that the confrontation between the local government and the federal government in the United States has intensified. On January 25, the governors of 25 Republican states in the United States issued a joint statement saying that they "stand with Texas." On January 27, Trump supported Texas Governor Tony Abbott at a rally. Civil society organizations opposed to the Biden administration's immigration policies are also mobilizing supporters to travel to Texas.
Like the barbed wire fence along the U.S.-Mexico border, a conflict suddenly raged between Texas and the Biden administration, between Republicans and Democrats. How did all this happen?
Supreme Court Conservative Judge 'Counter-Water'
The trigger for the incident was a decision of the U.S. Supreme Court. On January 22, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-4 in favor of a Biden administration's request to allow the U.S. Border Patrol to dismantle part of the barbed wire fence along the Texas border that is used to prevent illegal immigrants from entering the country. The barbed wire fence is mainly located along the Rio Grande in the Texas border city of Eagle Pass.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued an injunction temporarily suspending a lower court's ruling allowing border patrol agents belonging to the federal government to cross the barbed wire fence along the Texas border. The Biden administration appealed to the Supreme Court for this.
The U.S. Supreme Court, which was originally predominantly conservative, should have upheld the Fifth Circuit's injunction on the political spectrum. But in the vote, two conservative justices, John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett, sided with the three liberal justices.
The vote was seen as a huge victory for the Biden administration. However, Texas Republican Gov. Abbott was quick to hit back with the provisions of the Constitution.
The Constitution states that U.S. states have the right to defend themselves "in the event of an invasion." In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Abbott said, "The Texas National Guard continues to hold the line at Eagle Pass. Armed Texas National Guard soldiers then prevented U.S. Border Patrol agents from entering the state's border with Mexico and monitored incoming vehicles.
There will be no civil war, but there will be more opposition
To a large extent, the confrontation between Texas and the U.S. federal government has crossed the tacit rule of conflict between local governments and the federal government in the United States, that is, a certain "ceiling" cannot be exceeded. This breakthrough soon had a chain reaction in the field of public opinion, giving birth to a series of remarks advocating civil war and division in the United States.
One of those representatives was a replies from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from Georgia on X. In her post, she called for a "national divorce" between red and blue states. Green has often called for a "national divorce" in the United States according to the political spectrum, so it is not unusual for such statements to be made. Because of her radical remarks, even the American right-wing media kept a certain distance from her.
▲On January 25, in Washington, USA, fog rose around the Capitol, the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. Photo/Xinhua News Agency
But Green's strong hatred of the Democratic Party, as reflected in Green's "American divorce" theory, has indeed won the support of many Republicans. Based on the same abhorrence, these people even want to challenge the authority of the Supreme Court's ruling.
Rep. Chip Roy, Republican of Texas, called the Supreme Court's decision "to hell," while another showy Republican heavyweight, Senator Ted Cruz, said that "Biden wants our country to be invaded."
Of course, these politicians are just lip service, and there may not be any countermeasures to get the Supreme Court to rule "to hell with it", and the obstruction of federal law enforcement by the Texas National Guard does not mean that the American Civil War is imminent. But what is certain is that this wave of polarized politics will brew more confrontations. Polls show that nearly one-third of Republicans now believe that they may have to resort to violence to save the United States.
Biden may have to compromise
The political standoff between Texas and the Biden administration is now escalating under the impetus of Republicans. This bodes well for Republicans to make immigration one of the main issues in the U.S. election. And this issue is not good for Biden.
After Biden took office, he halted construction of Trump's border wall, lifted the ban on immigration from Muslim countries, and ended measures to keep migrants from the U.S.-Mexico border in Mexico. At one point, he even proposed a plan for the 11 million illegal immigrants who remained in the United States to legalize their status in eight years, but this plan was not pushed forward in Congress.
But these measures have stimulated a large-scale "line walking" activity along the US border, and the Biden administration has not received political points. An earlier CBS poll showed that 68 percent of respondents were dissatisfied with Biden's border control measures, and 63 percent believed Biden should take tougher measures.
It is worth noting that due to the impact of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Biden is likely to lose a large number of Muslim voters, and if the immigration issue is tightened, he may lose more minority votes. But the Republican Party has now made immigration one of the main cards in the election, and it is linked to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. This puts Biden in a dilemma.
Currently, the Biden administration and congressional Republicans are negotiating over a special budget of $100 billion. This budget will be used mainly to aid Ukraine and Israel. But congressional Republicans have demanded that Biden revise immigration policies and tighten border controls as a precondition for negotiations.
It was expected that the two parties would agree on the $100 billion special budget by February. However, as the conflict between Texas and the Biden administration escalates, the time to reach a consensus is bound to be delayed. And if Ukraine does not receive sustained assistance from the Biden administration, it risks being listed as a major failure for Biden by the Republican Party.
On January 26, Biden appealed to Republican lawmakers not to block the immigration plan that is being negotiated. He said the immigration program would be "the toughest, most restrictive and fairer reform in American history than ever before."
This indicates that Biden is likely to back down on the immigration issue and increase the deportation and rapid repatriation of illegal immigrants in exchange for aid budgets for Ukraine and Israel. This threatens to cool down the standoff between Texas and the Biden administration at some stage.
But even if things develop like this, it is doubtful that the slightly dramatic tensions at the Texas border are a big hole dug by Republicans for Biden in the early days of the election. For Trump, who has just won a "big victory" in the Republican Party's early elections, this is obviously a scene he is happy to see.
Written by Xu Lifan (Columnist)
Editor / Bruce Ma
Proofreading / Wang Xin