The (Constitutional) Crisis at the Border

Texas?

You know of course that you're out of your jurisdiction.

Hey everyone, this is Leon from Prologue Projects.

On this episode of 5-4, the hosts are talking about Texas.

That's because a new Texas state law, if allowed to go into effect, would create a new crime, being in the U.S.

illegally.

It may seem like that's already a crime, but SB4 would make it a crime at the state level.

Which is unusual, because states aren't in charge of who gets to enter and live in the U.S.

The federal government is.

Constitutionally, it would seem that Texas doesn't have a leg to stand on.

Immigration has long been firmly established as the province of the federal government.

But Texas has gone ahead and tried to implement SB4 anyway.

And it doesn't look like the Supreme Court has any plans to stop it.

This is 5-4, a podcast about how much the Supreme Court sucks.

Welcome to 5-4, where we dissect and analyze the Supreme Court cases that have failed our nation, like the Royal Family's PR team failed Kate Middleton.

Wow.

This is the dichotomy, by the way.

Either I can

give you a metaphor that's about a two-and-a-half-week-old news item,

or I can just tell you what's bothering me right now, like at this very moment.

Like the cases that have hurt us, like my tummy's hurting right now.

That's the other option.

It's the Rhiannon's sensitive boys theme, right?

Yeah, we could do that or

Kate Middleton.

Right.

I'm Peter.

I'm here with Rhiannon.

Hi, hello.

No, Michael today.

He said, you know what, you guys got this.

And he was right.

Yeah.

We do.

He did send a photo to try to show us that he's okay, but it's clearly Photoshop.

Yeah, very blurry.

So today's episode is about the hottest constitutional crisis in the country right now.

The,

well, maybe the second hottest, because you got the Trump one too.

Oh, there are so many constitutional crises.

Yeah, we got multiple.

It's like the QB prospects in the NFL draft, folks.

Yeah, it's exactly like that.

The standoff at the border between Texas and the federal government is what we're talking about today.

As our listeners may know, there is ostensibly a crisis at the border.

What exactly the nature of that crisis is depends on what your favorite news channel is.

But I think the bottom line, incontrovertible fact, is that encounters between Border Patrol and immigrants at the border are way up over the past few years, multiples of what they were a decade ago.

Yeah, that's true.

And when we're talking about encounters specifically, like using that word, that's a word that Border Patrol itself uses to count the number of times that somebody is apprehended by Border Patrol, a migrant is apprehended by Border Patrol when that migrant is trying to cross the border.

It's not a concert.

You can't put like a drone over the border and measure how many people are crossing.

You know what I mean?

All we have is what Border Patrol sees.

But in general, yes, interaction between Border Patrol and migrants at the border are up.

for a lot of different reasons.

One of them being that more migrants are at the border trying to get into the United States than usual.

And then those interactions between migrants and Border Patrol, there are so many reasons why that's the case.

Trump had the Remain in Mexico policy.

Biden extended that policy and sort of realities on the ground that mean that, yes, Border Patrol is interacting with migrants at the border much more than they have in years prior.

Safe to say that some large portion of it is the result of instability in Central America and Venezuela, especially.

Not our fault, you know?

We didn't do anything to cause that.

That instability is the result also of U.S.

policy.

Allegedly, allegedly.

Now, of course, this has been a hot-button political issue because Republicans have been pretending that there is a border crisis every election cycle for the last 15 years.

So for there to like maybe arguably be one is just a very big deal for them.

This is huge.

So

no more having to make up things about migrant caravans or whatever it was in 2020.

Various Republican states, namely Texas, have made a large effort to do some big-time grandstanding here, passing laws and taking actions designed to aggressively curb immigration across the southern border, including some actions that defy federal prerogatives.

And this has facilitated a constitutional crisis of sorts, because under our Constitution, immigration matters are entrusted to the federal government.

And so by pursuing these laws and policies, Texas specifically is encroaching on federal power within our system.

Right.

This is classic constitutional crisis shit, right?

Yeah, classic constitutional crisis shit.

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Thanks.