Challenger to Abbott Vows to Shut Down All Border Trade With Mexico
Huffines: “I’m going to make sure we stop all inbound commercial traffic from Mexico.”
Don Huffines, a Republican candidate for Texas governor, is campaigning on a platform that includes cutting off vital commercial flows across the Texas-Mexico border, a move that he says would pressure Mexico to stop migrants from coming to the border.
Trade through the Texas-Mexico border is valued at $400 billion per year, and the Texas stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border is the gateway for more than half of all U.S.-Mexico trade.
Huffines said during a recent appearance on Fox News, “Most people don’t realize, we have 25 bridges over the (Rio Grande) river. I’m going to make sure we stop all inbound commercial traffic from Mexico. And this is strategic to make sure we put the economic pressure on Mexico so they secure their side of the river.”
“I love Mexico, but let me tell you, they’re being a very bad neighbor. We need to finish the wall. I don’t care if you call it a Trump wall or a Texas wall, I’m going to build hundreds of miles of wall, I’m going to spend billions of dollars doing it because we need to spend the money, that’s a good trade. Texas taxpayers spend a lot more than that every year.”
Huffines, a former state senator, is an underdog to Governor Greg Abbott in the GOP primary. In a recent poll by the Dallas Morning News and the University of Texas at Tyler, just 15% of Republican primary voters said they’d support him, compared to 70% for Abbott.
Abbott himself has adopted an aggressive approach to border enforcement in recent months, deploying state troopers and National Guard to private ranchlands throughout south Texas where they are arresting migrants on state trespassing charges. That novel strategy aims to create a state deterrent in areas where Border Patrol are not detaining and deporting migrants.
However, state authorities are limited in how far they can go in enforcing federal immigration laws and regulating international trade. Huffines’ proposal, if acted upon, likely would run afoul of U.S. constitutional provisions that give the president powers to conduct foreign policy and Congress the power to “regulate commerce with foreign nations.”
He claims that the mass movement of migrants constitutes an “invasion,” justifying state action under this clause. “The federal government is never going to secure the border. They never have and they never will. This clearly is an invasion. And I can tell you I will never ask permission from the federal government to secure the Texas border,” Huffines said on Fox.
“I’m going to use the United States Constitution, and that’s Article I, Section 10, which clearly gives states the authority to defend themselves from an invasion. I’m going to engage all the Texas military or National Guard, 20,000 or more, and we’re going to secure the whole river. And if anyone gets across, we’re going to immediately take them back to the other side and send them back home… I’m going to do in 30 days what no one’s ever done in 30 years, and that’s to secure the border.”
Texas Democrats have objected to using the word “invasion” to describe immigration flows into the United States, saying that the word choice is inflammatory. When Republicans have used the term in the past, they’ve argued that characterizing migrants as threatening can provoke attacks against them, as in the El Paso Walmart shooting.
Huffines’ interview on Fox wasn’t the first time he put forward his ideas on immigration and trade. He first announced the idea of shutting down trade flows on July 6, offering a four-point plan involving deploying the entire Texas National Guard, “finishing Trump’s wall,” placing economic pressure on Mexico, and mandating e-verify for all Texas employers.
On his website, Huffines elaborates on his ideas: “Although the federal courts have attempted to federalize border control, for much of U.S. history, states dealt with immigration on their own authority under the U.S. Constitution. Texas should begin the effort to stop the takeover of the Constitution by the courts by taking control of our borders-no matter what the federal courts say about it.”
“I don’t care how the courts rule, Texans must be kept safe. I will not ask the federal government for permission. I will do whatever it takes to permanently end the practice of illegal immigration into Texas.”
Huffines’ plan to seal off the Texas border also echoes Donald Trump’s threats in 2019 to shut down border trade, at a time when large migrant caravans were heading to the U.S. border.
Originally published at https://www.honestaustin.com on October 7, 2021.
