A suggestion for Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico
Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico could make one major policy change that would have a profound, immediate effect on national policy. It would be far more effective than a lawsuit winding through the courts and awaiting a sympathetic judge's ruling. The state governments should institute a policy, initially by executive order, then endorsed and reinforced by legislative action, that anyone who crosses the border from Mexico must be hustled onto a bus that, when full, is driven directly to Washington, D.C., emptied, and returned to the border for more passengers.*
We've seen that, for our federal political class, what stays distant from D.C. (such as riots, vandalism, violence, and hordes of drug-addled homeless occupying a city) is not a big deal. Instead, we're told the societal breakdown we see is mostly peaceful, normal expressions of "protest." But bring an "insurrection" close to the home of our elected leaders, and all hell breaks loose.
During the January 6 breach of the Capitol, nobody burned the building, trashed its contents, or stole the art off the walls, but our public flower children of politics got spooked, and now we have an armed military and razor wire guarding them. Moreover, these protections are apparently there to stay until the cows come home, optics be damned.
Imagine our senators' and House members' chagrin if, after a day of mindlessly undoing every accomplishment Trump achieved, as much to spite him as for policy reasons, they had to wade through teeming hordes of Guatemalan and Honduran refugee families whenever they left their sacrosanct lair. These people are penniless, uneducated, homeless, and carrying who knows what diseases, most likely along with plenty of COVID.
Our sheltered politicians would have to deal with the mess, just as the rest of us do. They would be the ones stepping around the piles of feces and crossing the street to avoid the tweaking, scary addicts. They would see rats run from one rank pile of garbage to the next. They, not ordinary people, would fear for their lives as the desperate got violent.
With this introduction to the real world, they might think twice about allowing the cartels to move massive amounts of Chinese oxycontin into our country. They might think twice about releasing the refugee hordes.
They might actually be forced to think about the consequences of their actions in real time rather than theoretically — just as they had to think about what it felt like to be invaded by a mob, a behavior that met with Democrats' approval throughout 2020. When the mob came near them, they certainly acted quickly to ensure that it never happened again. They even overreacted by the looks of it.
The benefit to Texas would be immediate. Instead of becoming responsible for housing and health care for the refugees that Biden et al. let in, they'd get to offload that responsibility right where it belongs: onto the people who invited the situation.
What type of policy shift would happen? Start with ICE. Congresspeople would need them, desperately, as crime rises. It's nice to say, in theory, that having a gang tattoo of MS13 on your forehead doesn't make you a gang member. But faced with a machete-wielding, tatted up thug or two, they might re-evaluate. Likewise, they might think, theoretically, that coddling addicts and housing the "unhoused" is the thing to do, but give them thousands of each, and how will they act? Is it not right that the people who make the rules for the rest of us get to reap the harvest of their misguided efforts?
Then they'd have to reconsider the wall. Wouldn't that be something?
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*Whether the states have the authority to do this is another question. If they don't, they should. Gov. Gavin Newsom would never dream of doing this, which is why California is excluded from this post.
Image: Unmasked illegal aliens heading for the USA. YouTube screen grab.