In 1957, defiant Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus ignored Supreme Court orders to integrate Little Rock’s Central High School.  To enforce the Court’s historic decision, President Dwight Eisenhower federalized the Arkansas National Guard and sent in the 101st Airborne.  In 1963, President John F. Kennedy federalized and took control of the Alabama National Guard after Governor George Wallace used guardsmen to block court-ordered integration of the University of Alabama.

The root of today’s contest between Texas and the Oval Office differs from the Arkansas and Alabama episodes.  In 1957 and 1963, governors defied federal authorities attempting to uphold the law.  Today, the roles are reversed: a governor, Texas’s Greg Abbott, finds himself forced to perform what is largely a federal responsibility—border security—because Washington, D.C. categorically refuses to perform its constitutional duty.  Ground Zero for Abbott’s effort is Eagle Pass, Texas, where the Texas National Guard and the Texas Department of Public Safety have barred illegal entry by border violators over federal objections.

Count on this: the White House would justify the use of force against Texas by hijacking the moral authority of Eisenhower, Kennedy, and the Warren Supreme Court, who enforced the constitutional rights of black Americans to attend public schools and universities.  The White House and its congressional allies already disparage as racist Abbott’s effort to defend Texas from the illegal invasion.  The Roberts Supreme Court supplied a pretext for military action against Texas with an order undermining Abbott’s decision to deploy razor wire against illegal entry over a small fraction of Texas’s 1,200 mile border with Mexico in Eagle Pass.

There may be more to come from the Supreme Court as Biden’s anti-Texas lawsuits wind through the federal courts.  Up next is Biden’s attempt to upend a new Texas law authorizing Texas courts and prosecutors to punish and expel border violators.  But the demonstrated lawlessness of the White House and its Attorney General should leave little doubt that top Biden advisers are now mulling non-judicial strategies:  the federalization of the Texas National Guard, and troop deployments to dislodge Texas authorities from Eagle Pass.

When would the Biden administration act to neutralize Abbott?  Timing is everything.  In 2014, to avoid blowback against the Sochi Winter Olympics, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin delayed his Ukraine invasion until after the games.  Likewise, Biden probably would not escalate against Texas before resolution of the current federal budget impasse.  Biden’s military action to stamp out Texan self-defense against his catastrophic executive decision to open the border would spell the end of Capitol Hill negotiations on border security, and assistance to Ukraine and Israel, among other programs.

Why, now, would the administration follow through at all with a reckless anti-Texas strategy?  As Biden’s re-election prospects wane, it is reasonable to expect him and his inner circle to concoct a dramatic event to mobilize voters and recover lost ground.  A clueless White House may see Texas’s wildly underestimated Governor Abbott as the perfect foil to accomplish this.  Perhaps Biden advisers will conclude that an Executive Order federalizing the Texas National Guard, coupled with planeloads of active-duty paratroopers pouring into Eagle Pass, would provide a dramatic Hail Mary pass to salvage a second Biden term.

If we have learned anything during the last three years, it is that Biden’s inner circle is indifferent to harm to Americans posed by Biden policies on the border, defense, diplomacy, energy production, and the economy.  Risks posed by Biden military action against Texas include American casualties and backlash from unified governors and citizens against a White House blatantly ignoring its constitutional duties—but the Biden camp does not care.

Texas National Guard and law enforcement personnel have been attempting to hold the line on Biden’s open border with Mexico since the president’s first year in office.  What can be done until January 2025, when a new president restores constitutional governance?

In 1776, our Declaration of Independence explained American grievances against King George III to “a candid World” by writing of the British tyrant’s endeavors “to bring on the Inhabitants of our Frontiers … an undistinguished Destruction, of all Ages, Sexes, and Conditions.”  The direct political descendants of the 1776 signers—Congress and state governors—must bluntly warn the White House now against coercive federal measures to prevent Texas from protecting its citizens—and the nation—against the human waves crossing “our Frontiers” illegally.  

Better to dissent from such a strategy now and not later, when the 101st Airborne’s Screaming Eagles arrive in Eagle Pass.

The author is a Texas resident and veteran of Navy service in Iraq and submarines.  As Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for counternarcotics he was responsible for funding National Guard counternarcotics programs in all fifty states.  Douglas has lived and worked in Mexico and at the border.  He was also a lawyer for the U.S. Senate.

Image: Public domain.