Visit the official Kinney County website and you will find a call to arms.
KINNEY COUNTY IS DRAWING THE LINE IN THE STAND!
WILL YOU CROSS IT AND STAND WITH US?
In all caps, and with a misspelling to boot, the bellowing against illegal immigration is coming straight from the Kinney County judge, Tully Shahan. A Republican, Shahan has warned that Texas is “under siege” as “thousands upon thousands of illegal aliens invade” the state.
His exhortation is aimed at gathering support for Operation Lone Star, Gov. Greg Abbott’s reelection-inspired, homemade border policy that has wasted taxpayer money and the time and effort of the Department of Public Safety and the Texas National Guard. Instead of thwarting undocumented immigrants, the governor’s $2 billion plan has transformed stretches of the border into a militarized zone and, in an absurdist twist of fate, has resulted in the release of undocumented immigrants into the United States who otherwise might have been deported.
No wonder then that Shahan is almost alone among Texas elected officials along the border who support the Abbott misadventure.
In a way, the county judge is heir to a family tradition of drawing lines in the sand (if not in “the stand”). His father, James T. “Happy” Shahan, lured Duke himself — that would be John Wayne — to the border brush country between Del Rio and Eagle Pass to make the 1960 film, “The Alamo.” Wayne had planned to make the movie in Mexico, until the Daughters of the Republic of Texas got wind of his sacrilege and threatened to shut down every theater in the state if it was made in Mexico.
Wayne yes-ma’amed the strong-willed women and headed back across the Rio Grande to Kinney County.
Viewers around the world were stirred by the sight of Wayne as Davy Crockett, along with every Alamo defender but one, stepping across the line drawn in the sand by British actor Laurence Harvey as Col. William Barret Travis.
These days, you might say that Abbott is playing the role of Col. Travis with Shahan wearing Crockett’s fringed suede jacket, with both men resisting modern-day invaders from across the Rio Grande. Abbott, pressed by two extreme-right Republicans who want the governor’s job, concocted a scheme that he imagined would result in mass arrests that would deter potential border-crossers. Bidding to out-Trump the former president, he even had his own wall built, a stretch of chain-link fence topped with razor wire that went up on private land. The fence provides a rationale for trespassing charges.
In a Hollywood-caliber twist, though, arrested migrants are being released on bail in most border jurisdictions and allowed to remain in the United States until their charges are resolved and their requests for asylum are considered. Things are different in Shahan’s Kinney County, as the Chronicle’s Jasper Scherer reported recently. As of last week, 954 migrants were being held in two state prisons serving as local jails. All but 39 of them had been arrested in Kinney County.
Three state-appointed judges in the county — two Republican and one Democrat — had been handling most of the trespassing cases and, like counterparts in many other border counties, had been releasing them on no-cost bail as they awaited court dates. Shahan replaced those judges in December, handling the cases himself as he hired hand-picked replacements. Shahan is refusing to release migrants unless they come up with bail money. As the Texas Tribune first reported, many are being kept behind bars for months if they do not plead guilty or post bail.
This month, a state district judge in Travis County ruled that Shahan is obstructing the federal government’s enforcement of immigration laws. If the ruling stands on appeal, defense attorneys for the migrants say it could lead to the dismissal of hundreds of similar cases. Texas, of course, will appeal, but it’s becoming more apparent by the week that Abbott’s posturing and Shahan’s over-hyped talk of invasions are likely to backfire, leaving more migrants on this side of the border than had they kept their pistols in their holsters.
Texas does need a secure border, but all Abbott and Shahan appear to be creating is a gaping loophole. Here’s a Houston Chronicle editorial-page message crafted in the style that County Judge Shahan might appreciate: THE HOUSTON CHRONICLE EDITORIAL PAGE DOES NOT CONDONE YOUR OPEN BORDERS OR THE ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION YOU HAVE MADE WORSE!
Satire aside, what Texas needs is responsible leadership — on the border as anywhere else. There are ruthless cartels running drugs and trafficking people into this country. They should be stopped. But targeting desperate migrants is tackling the wrong end of the problem.
As for the practical problem caused by immigrants crossing the border without documentation, the solution has been in plain sight for years. We’ve long called for a federal reform, not reelection stunts.
A dozen years ago, Republicans in Congress, in conjunction with their Democratic colleagues, came close to approving a comprehensive immigration-reform package that might have fixed our complicated border challenges. Tea Party Republicans in the House killed the deal, and ever since the GOP has stubbornly refused to seriously address the issue. A governor obsessed with reelection maintains that tradition.
Thanks to Abbott’s Operation Lone Star, it’s impossible to drive a quarter mile along U.S. Highway 90 through Kinney County without encountering the black-and-white SUVs of the DPS. Bored troopers dispatched to the border from around the state have little to do, beyond harassing locals over minor traffic infractions. They’re also having to neglect their official duties back home. Even more regrettable, a DPS special agent, Anthony Salas, was killed in a traffic accident in Maverick County last week while assisting Border Patrol officers.
The situation with the National Guard is even worse than with the DPS. “We’re basically mall cops on the border,” a Guardsman told the New York Times. With no clue when they’ll get back home, these citizen soldiers are coping less with border intruders and more with foul-ups involving pay and benefits, as well as periodic COVID outbreaks. Morale among Guardsmen on border duty reportedly has hit rock-bottom. At least two have committed suicide.
Our governor’s commitment to fair, effective and humane immigration policy is about as real as John Wayne’s hair, which reportedly needed a toupee glued to his scalp during filming in wind-swept Kinney County. We would encourage Texans who are serious about actually addressing problems at the border to contact their elected representatives and press the Biden administration to make the issue a priority. While they are at it, they should “draw a line in the stand” against a governor who, for political reasons, has taken a bad situation at the border and made it worse.
Houston Chronicle
