As far as political theater goes, no one was expecting a buddy movie when Gov. Greg Abbott met President Joe Biden at the tarmac for the Democrat’s high-stakes border visit Sunday. Yet it’s sad and telling that a hostile letter that Abbott delivered to Biden after shaking hands is seemingly the bulk of their communication during the Texas visit.
Biden’s visit was long overdue, as his own fellow Democrats have said. We have supported Abbott’s calls for better border enforcement because he’s right about the chaos that border communities have experienced from the nonstop arrival of thousands of migrants every day.
Abbott’s letter included fair criticisms of the Biden administration, but the tone and delivery make its contents unhelpful. The letter, which Abbott handed to Biden in front of news cameras, felt more like the president was being served a warrant than being greeted in good faith by the governor of our state.
“All of this is happening because you have violated your constitutional obligation to defend the States against invasion through faithful execution of federal laws,” Abbott wrote.
That is a strong accusation. But worse, it repeats ugly rhetoric characterizing the border crisis in military terms that risk portraying all migrants as enemy combatants.
Americans can handle nuance. We understand that what’s happening at the border is a political and humanitarian emergency that should not continue unabated, even as we recognize that most arrivals are desperate adults and children, and they deserve to be treated humanely even if their asylum claims ultimately are not aligned with U.S. law.
We know that our governor, too, is capable of nuance. Yet he continues to eschew that in favor of political posturing that rallies his Republican base but that does little to advance solutions.
For instance, Abbott called on Biden to “stop sandbagging” the implementation of Title 42, a pandemic-era policy used to expel migrants without allowing them to apply for asylum because of public health concerns. Plans to end that policy have become tied up in federal courts.
We marvel at persistent calls from conservatives to continue Title 42 even as COVID-19 has waned and our nation has moved on from pandemic protocols. Title 42 is a crutch, not a meaningful answer to our problems at the border.
Abbott has spent the last two years antagonizing the Biden administration, which makes it unlikely that Texas will improve its cooperation with the White House. Unsurprisingly, Abbott was not invited to attend the president’s El Paso tour.
The governor could have made a statement without being antagonistic. We wish he had taken a page from El Paso County Judge Ricardo Samaniego, a Democrat. He told our newspaper: “I’m not going to be nice, and I’m not going to be rude, either.”
It’s a shame that our governor won’t model bipartisan cooperation and leadership for us. Even some immigrant advocates who oppose Abbott agree with him that the border crisis shouldn’t be solely the problem of border states like Texas.
What Texas needs is a serious meeting about border security at the highest levels without making it a political and press event. Maybe then will our leaders stop playing for the cameras and start working for us.
