Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick laid out a mainstream agenda for the Legislature to consider when it convenes in January, and I want to endorse the tone of the items Patrick presented.
Border security — along with property tax relief and strengthening the state’s electrical grid — is a solid agenda item for the state to tackle.
I want to offer an important caveat in backing Patrick’s border security push. I do not want him to demagogue the issue — as he has done already — by declaring that President Biden favors an “open border.” Joe Biden does not favor an open border and his policies since taking office illustrate the point.
The feds continue to detain immigrants every day. They send some of them back, they send others to holding areas for processing. Our southern border — and northern border, for that matter — is not an open border.
Does the state have a role to play? Of course it does! Gov. Greg Abbott has been sending Department of Public Safety troopers to the Valley to lend aid and support to Border Patrol officers and local police. The state needs to buttress its high-tech surveillance as well to catch undocumented migrants.
Let us not concentrate on building walls along our border, which given the presence of the Rio Grande River along our state’s entire southern border, presents the state with a nearly impossible goal of keeping all migrants from entering the United States.
I want to encourage the newly re-elected lieutenant governor to take the high road when discussing border security.
Demagoguery only makes your foes angry.