How it’s supposed to be
For over a generation, Texas Republicans have owned the politics of the southern border. Now the Trump administration’s latest border project has them cornered, stuck between constituents outraged over federal plans to carve roads and barriers through Big Bend and a president none of them want to cross.
Even Ken Paxton is choosing his words carefully. The Republican Senate nominee, a reliable ally of President Donald Trump, said in a statement that the administration’s plan “is not smart border security,” representing a rare break from the White House.
As bipartisan outrage has exploded in West Texas, numerous top Republicans have hedged on the matter, welcoming this week’s construction pause without entirely breaking from the Trump administration. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, echoing other GOP leaders, said he was glad federal officials were taking a beat “to hear the concerns of local landowners and law enforcement.” And he acknowledged that “the tools needed to secure the border in Big Bend are likewise different than those needed in a dense urban environment,” without explicitly condemning the project.
“It is a huge liability,” said former Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, a Republican who has been outspoken about the political vulnerability presented by construction in the beloved region. “This issue has become big, really big, and it’s going to become bigger.”
[…]
The source of all the anger are plans from the Trump administration to build an access road and vehicle barriers in Big Bend National Park and 30-foot tall barriers on private land outside the park.
Adding to the furor, the plans — consistently shrouded in secrecy — have changed repeatedly with little communication, as some residents and ranchers learned of developments through a government website or when they received letters from U.S. Customs and Border Protection threatening to take their land via eminent domain.
Republicans and Democrats alike in West Texas say there is no need for a physical barrier in the area the administration is eyeing out there.
Border Patrol agents are divided by geographic regions called sectors. The Big Bend sector is the largest and quietest. It covers 77 Texas counties and 517 miles of the 1,954-mile-long U.S.-Mexico border. That area accounted for just 1.3% of the 237,538 apprehensions recorded across the entire border last fiscal year.
“In other words, we don’t have a problem,” Patterson, the Republican who held statewide office for 12 years until 2015, said. “And we’ve got, so far, a $7.5 billion fix in no-bid contracts.”
See here, here, and here for the background, and read the rest, it’s a long story. A few brief bullet-pointed highlights:
– From the Trans-Texas Corridor to Texas Central High Speed Railway, if there’s one thing rural Texans really hate, it’s eminent domain. Any Texas Republican politician, especially any Texas Republican politician who has been hostile in any form to Texas Central, really should have understood that. Maybe they thought Trump’s devil magic would overcome this. They were wrong.
– Notably, Trump’s name never came up in any of the timid statements put out by those who had something to say about this.
– One person who’s said absolutely nothing about this so far: Dan Patrick. Too busy with smutty books, I guess.
– Once again, it’s just amazing to see all these big macho Republicans run screaming from things they used to brag about. Fear is a powerful motivator.
– Democrats, thankfully, have been unified on this all along. No crossover votes in favor of any bills that included funding for this boondoggle, no qualified statements about it, just straight-up clear messages in opposition to this stupid wall. There aren’t enough things I can say that about, so let’s be happy for this one.