Texas' border battle with White House takes center stage at congressional hearing
WASHINGTON - A congressional hearing was held on Tuesday focused on the rights of states when it comes to immigration.
The Republican-led House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution hearing started with the position that the Biden Administration has failed to secure the border.
That partisan tone dominated the debate over Governor Abbott's standoff with the White House on razor wire and other deterrents.
"We have the right to defend ourselves. It is inherent. The constitution reflects that and governors and states can and should step in if the federal government does not do their job," said Rep. Chip Roy (R-Austin).
Brent Webster, the First Assistant Attorney General of Texas, was one of four people invited to testify at the hearing.
"At no point is Texas contesting the right of any party to avail themself of a legal port of entry. What's at issue is the invasion that occurs in the other locations that are not ports of entry," he said.
Those locations, between ports of entry, are the flashpoints in this dispute. The Supreme Court appeared to side with the federal government's authority by ruling that federal border agents can cut down razor wire installed by DPS and the Texas National Guard.
Supreme Court allows federal agents to cut razor wire Texas installed on US-Mexico border
A divided Supreme Court on Monday allowed Border Patrol agents to cut razor wire that Texas installed on the U.S.-Mexico border, while a lawsuit over the wire continues.
Gov. Abbott said the state will continue to install razor wire under his declaration that Texas is being invaded, with Democrats on the committee challenging that authority.
"Why is this hearing happening today, to try and breathe life into a crackpot legal theory that is so extreme that even hardcore conservative scholars have rejected it? Declaring correctly that this is an attempt to subvert the Constitutional order for political purposes," said Rep. Mary Scanlon (D-Pennsylvania).
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Democrats also challenged Webster on Gov. Abbott's policy of busing and flying asylum seekers to self-declared sanctuary cities in other states.
"I do know the Mayor of New York has expressed concern about how many are arriving in his city," said Webster.
"Because either Gov. DeSantis or your governor has sent them, put them on airplanes, sent them to New York, buses, airplanes, whatever, and sent them to Chicago and sent them to Denver," said Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tennessee).
This will not be the last congressional debate over the border.
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Those who are working on a bipartisan stopgap are hoping there won't be political interference because it is an election year.
"It's really tragic because our nation deserves bipartisan solutions that make sense and that help our country," said Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-El Paso).
While that committee meeting was going on, the Republican-led House committee is considering articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
The full House could take up a vote next week.
Even if the House votes to impeach Mayorkas, the Senate does not appear to have the two-thirds majority needed to remove him.