AUSTIN, Texas – Texas Gov. Greg Abbott maybe had to dodge some rotten grapefruits — a few, lofted from normally friendly faces in the gallery.
But the Texas governor’s on-again, off-again inspections of incoming trucks from Mexico, that snarled traffic and bungled international trade, probably helped him politically in the short term, experts said Friday.
The inspections and the free bus rides for migrants to Washington, D.C., may have yielded Abbott several desirable outcomes, one said: The governor got a prime time slot on Fox News’ most-watched show talking about an issue that’s wildly popular with GOP voters. His flurry of border-related activity appeared to avert any long-lasting, deleterious effects from the “enhanced safety inspections” he ordered state police to conduct.
And four Mexican border-state governors came forward to show Abbott details of what they were doing to deter a widened flow of undocumented immigrants headed northward through their states toward Texas.
Even if the Mexican leaders added very little of substance to what their state governments already were doing, the optics were great for the Republican governor, who is seeking reelection to a third term in November, said James Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas, Austin.
“It looks like he’s taking the fight to Mexico and he looks very — dare I say it — statesmanlike, right?” Henson said. “I’m purposefully not using the word presidential. But you know what I mean, right? This breaks his way. The pushback is outweighed by the fact that border security is the great Republican unifier. He gets to present himself as doing something productive.”
Although Abbott hasn’t said if he’s interested in running for president in 2024, University of Texas, San Antonio political scientist Sharon A. Navarro dared to use the “P word” — even as she rated his latest border moves as “a political strategy to mobilize his base and to look tough.”
Abbott’s hastily signed agreements with four Mexican governors offered him a way to save face while dialing back the Department of Public Safety checks of every vehicle and letting normal traffic resume, Navarro said.
“Abbott is playing on the fears of voters — fear of a lawless border,” she said. “He spun what could have been potentially a negative into a positive by signing agreements that essentially make no significant difference. … He definitely looks like he is doing something to curb the migrant surge. He almost looks presidential.”
The reviews of Abbott’s performance were not unanimous. University of Houston political scientist Jeronimo Cortina, who is an expert on Latino politics, said he sees more of “a mixed bag” for Abbott from his new border initiatives, announced earlier this month.
While it’s proper for U.S. governors of border states to bring pressure on the White House and Congress for a failed national immigration policy, Abbott has discarded any pretense of fiscal conservatism, for which Republicans once were known, Cortina said. State taxpayers are now on the hook for potentially more than $5 billion this budget cycle for the Texas-run immigration dragnet, he noted.
But state and national GOP efforts to woo South Texas Latinos could be dampened by televised images of rotting citrus on stalled trucks that ran out of diesel fuel because of hours-long waits on the ports of entry bridges, Cortina said.
“Border communities are very dependent on trade,” he said. “I don’t think they’re going to see these (events) as very positive.”
It also doesn’t help that a high-ranking fellow statewide elected official called Abbott’s actions political theater, the UH professor said, referring to GOP state Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller.
Miller lambasted the truck inspections ordered by Abbott.
“It just kind of blew up on him it looks like to me and he’s trying to get out of it without getting egg on his face, which he’s pretty much done,” Miller said in an interview with The Dallas Morning News.
Miller, the most prominent Republican to link Abbott’s inspection initiative to higher prices for fresh produce in grocery stores, sees no upside to the governor’s move.
“They didn’t catch one illegal alien. They didn’t find one ounce of dope, nothing. They’re just safety inspections checking turn signals and brake lights,” he said.
“We could have done the same thing through negotiations,” said Miller, who has had icy relations with Abbott for several years. “But he chose to strong-arm something that did absolutely no good, nothing to ward off the end of Title 42.”
Miller referred to President Joe Biden’s apparent decision to next month lift former President Donald Trump’s public-health order that justified expulsions of asylum seekers because of the coronavirus outbreak.
On Fox News’ "Tucker Carlson Tonight" on Thursday, though, Abbott told the host of the highest-rated talk show on cable TV that he’d won concessions by imposing what he knew would be “crushing” pain on the Mexican economy.
“The predictable result is that these governors of (Mexican) states that are connected to Texas would be knocking on our door begging for relief,” he said. “And if they beg for relief, we are demanding that they implement security measures that will reduce illegal immigration coming across the border.”
Texas’ key demand is for the states in northern Mexico to “finally step up and stop these low-water crossings” by which undocumented immigrants enter the U.S., Abbott said.
As he did at a Weslaco news conference on Friday when signing a pact with Tamaulipas’ governor, Abbott warned he could bring back the truck inspections, if Mexican officials renege on their promise.
As he told Carlson, “If they fail to do that, we are to continue with our right to inspect every single vehicle coming across that bridge into the state of Texas regardless of the economic consequences it poses to Mexico.”
But the financial hit isn’t just confined to the state’s southern neighbor. By some estimates, Texas lost more than $450 million per day to the intensive truck inspections that delayed vehicles by hours or even days. During the gridlock, groups representing produce sellers and truckers begged Abbott to pull back.
Some large business trade groups, though, have declined to take shots at Abbott.
On Friday, Glenn Hamer, president and chief executive of the Texas Association of Business, pushed back on suggestions that Abbott’s agreements with the governors of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas amount to little more than window dressing.
“We want to see commerce uninterrupted — unimpeded for lawful commerce,” Hamer said. He lauded Abbott’s four pacts with the Mexican governors.
“They will lead to some level of increased security, certainly some level of increased collaboration and just from the evidence of what happened in Nuevo Leon and our state, a return to the normal flow of commerce,” Hamer said. “That’s a positive way to land this plane.”
Former state Sen. Pete Flores, who represented several border communities and is running for the office again, doesn’t predict any long-term political or economic repercussions.
“It will mean that the understanding is clear as to what the expectations are for Texas and their Mexican counterparts,” he said.
UT’s Henson said the main risk for Abbott from using commerce-choking tactics is widening the gulf in his own party between the business wing and populist conservative activists.
“There are a lot of businesses that have been unhappy with certain kinds of policies like this from the Abbott administration, but they’re reticent to go too public with it,” Henson said. He referred to COVID-19 policies such as Abbott’s attempt to block companies from requiring employees to get vaccinated.
“The big, long-term picture that this sort of paints for us is the increasing tension within the Republican Party between business constituencies that have traditionally been comfortable in the party and their base,” he said.
Abbott acted shortly after former immigration officials in the Trump administration pressured the GOP governors of Texas and Arizona to invoke a reference to invasion of state in the U.S. Constitution to justify draconian actions to stop illegal immigration.
Late last month, Tom Homan, former acting director for Immigration and Customs Enforcement under Trump, said at a border security conference in San Antonio that he spoke with Abbott and urged him to use a novel interpretation of the federal Constitution to have the National Guard or state police forcibly send migrants to Mexico, the Associated Press reported.
Although Abbott handily defeated several GOP challengers in the March 1 gubernatorial primary, for much of the past year, one of them, former Dallas state Sen. Don Huffines, had been pushing the “invasion” concept.
Huffines promised to invoke Article 1, Section 10 of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits states from engaging in war unless “actually invaded,” in order to stop all immigration into the country without coordinating with the federal government.
On April 6, Abbott flew to the Rio Grande Valley to announce measures that, while stopping short of asserting that U.S. states can take military action to repel “invasions,” as some conservatives wanted him to proclaim, were equally provocative: Immediately, Texas would start state inspecting all trucks entering the U.S. from Mexico, even though the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency inspects them with X-ray scans and drug-sniffing dogs. Texas also would offer migrants free bus rides to Washington, D.C., and practice some military maneuvers at the border, Abbott announced.
Mainstream news media accounts devoted considerable attention to the disruptions of commerce that Abbott’s inspections order triggered — and possible higher food prices that Americans may see as a result.
Even the conservative Wall Street Journal gave Abbott’s actions a thumbs-down, saying in an editorial Thursday that “his truck inspections are costing Texans and Americans dearly while doing nothing to secure the border.”
Although Biden may lift Title 42, the migrants likely to seek asylum “will pour across the border at non-ports of entry,” and not over the bridges, the Journal wrote.
“Mr. Abbott’s inspections won’t prevent that. They merely impede legal commerce between Mexico and the U.S. … (T)he stunt could hurt Republicans in districts along the border, where the party has been gaining support.”
But Fox’s audience far exceeds those of in-state news outlets, some analysts noted — meaning that from the standpoint of public relations, especially with the GOP base, Abbott may have gained more bouquets than brickbats from his latest border exploits.
“The nuances and details of this are likely not front and center for most voters,” said UT’s Henson. For Abbott, he said, “this is a political win.”
