Texas has continued to defy President Joe Biden on the border issue and is offering cash for Texas Military Department members to man the border.
The Lone Star State is seeking “to deploy border security assets to high threat areas to deny criminal organizations the ability to illegally move drugs and people into Texas,” according to TMD’s website.
This comes amid ongoing tensions between Governor Greg Abbott and the Biden administration over the border with Mexico. On Monday, the Supreme Court sided with the Biden administration and held that federal Border Patrol agents were authorized to remove the razor wire installed under Abbott’s orders near the border city of Eagle Pass.
Volunteers will work with the Texas Military Department full-time for up to $55 per day, according to the agency’s website.
The volunteers must already be members of the TMD in an initiative that is part of Abbott’s Operation Lone Star to combat the rise in illegal immigration.
The call for more volunteers is part of a showdown between the state and the Biden administration over the issue of the border.
The Biden administration has argued the wire, installed as part of Operation Lone Star, restricts Border Patrol agents from accessing parts of the border. Abbott, meanwhile, has slammed “Biden’s reckless open-border policies,” and tweeted after the Supreme Court’s decision that the wire is an “effective deterrent against the illegal border crossings.”
In apparent defiance of the court’s decision, he said: “We continue to deploy this razor wire to repel illegal immigration.”
In a letter on January 24 after the ruling, the Department of Homeland Security demanded “full access” to the border by January 26, CNN reported. The letter, addressed to Texas officials, said members of the federal Customs and Border Protection units have been blocked from accessing the area, per CNN.
Newsweek has approached Abbott’s office to ask if a new call for volunteers has been issued as well as the Biden administration out of hours for comment via email.
In a statement provided to Newsweek shortly after the court’s decision, a spokesperson for Abbott’s office said: “The absence of razor wire and other deterrence strategies encourages migrants to make unsafe and illegal crossings between ports of entry, while making the job of Texas National Guard soldiers and DPS troopers more dangerous and difficult. This case is ongoing, and Governor Abbott will continue fighting to defend Texas’ property and its constitutional authority to secure the border.”
In May last year, Texas Republicans tried to create another ‘Border Protection Unit’ that caused non-governmental organizations to raise fears of vigilante groups.
Republicans had added attached language regarding the protection unit to an amendment of House Bill 7 after House Bill 20—proposing the “establishment of the Border Protection Unit”—failed to pass.
The State Senate was unable to agree on the bill, which, according to the Texas legislature website, was “Relating to measures to address public safety threats,” in its final form.
Citizen members of the unit would have the power to “detain persons crossing the Texas-Mexico border unlawfully” and arrest them, under the provisions.
Human Rights Watch expressed concerns and said: “People serving in the unit would be granted criminal and civil immunity against claims of wrongdoing.” The non-profit said that the provisions would give “Texas police power to vigilantes.”
All of a sudden, the U.S. has become the biggest liquid-natural-gas exporter in the world. Supplied by a souped-up hydraulic-fracturing industry, and spurred by Russia’s war on Ukraine, which has hampered European gas access, LNG export terminals are being built on a monumental scale throughout the U.S. Gulf Coast, in places so beset by climate disasters that homes there are now deemed uninsurable.
Shipping LNG abroad could be its own climate disaster, with questionable benefits: Recent research found that it may be worse for the environment than burning coal; other reports suggest that the build-out will quickly outpace future European demand or financially benefit global commodity traders over European consumers. These discrepancies have prompted questions about whether the Biden administration would step in to halt the infrastructure boom.
The answer was not obvious: America’s climate policy under President Joe Biden has been full of contradictions. Biden ran on a platform that presented him as the first climate president, then led the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, the largest investment the U.S. has made in curbing climate change. He launched the American Climate Corps, set a new national goal to reduce emissions, and made moves to phase down super-pollutant HFCs and methane emissions. At the same time, he has supervised perhaps the single-most oil-and-gas-intensive year in U.S. history. America now produces more oil than any other country ever has. He granted a key permit for a gas pipeline in Appalachia maligned by activists for its threat to forests and waterways, and signed off on the Willow Project, a sprawling new $8 billion oil-drilling project on pristine federal lands in Alaska. Activists rightly called it a “carbon bomb,” and its approval left young voters embittered.
Americans received a preview of a second Biden term on Friday when the President halted permits for new liquefied natural gas (LNG) export projects. Climate politics has become the tail wagging this Administration’s economic, national security and foreign policy. President Biden isn’t running for re-election. Climate lobbyist
“This pause on new LNG approvals sees the climate crisis for what it is: the existential threat of our time,” Mr. Biden said. “We will heed the calls of young people and frontline communities who are using their voices to demand action from those with the power to act.” Didn’t he campaign in 2020 by promising to be the adult in the room?
