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    A risky bet? Texas Republicans poised to redraw congressional map on Trump’s orders

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    At the behest of Donald Trump, Texas Republicans are poised to redraw their state’s congressional map to try and gain as many as five congressional seats, a move that is likely to further weaken the influence of the state’s fast-growing non-white population and could wind up backfiring on the party.The effort to redraw the map represents a blunt and undemocratic effort by Republican lawmakers to pick the voters who elect them, and comes at a time when many of the party’s positions are unpopular. The US president and national Republicans are making the push because the GOP holds a 220-212 advantage in the US House (there are three Democratic vacancies) and Trump’s party typically loses seats in the midterm elections, which will happen next year.But it’s a risky bet. Twenty-five of Texas’s 38 congressional districts are currently represented by Republicans, a result that was carefully engineered when lawmakers redrew the state’s congressional map in 2021. During that process, mapmakers focused on shoring up Republican seats instead of trying to pick up Democratic ones.In order to pick up new seats, Republicans will have to spread their voters from safe Republican ones into Democratic districts. It could allow them to pick up more seats, but also makes the Republican districts more competitive and potentially winnable by Democrats in a strong year.The number of seats Republicans are able to pick up “depends on how much risk Republicans want to take,” said David Wasserman, an analyst at the Cook Political Report who closely follows US House races. “Republicans could probably target three Democratic seats very easily, but once it gets to four or five, that could put additional Republican seats at risk.”When Republicans drew the existing map, they blunted the political influence of non-white voters in the state, who accounted for 95% of the state’s population growth over the last decade. The new maps could further weaken their ability to elect their preferred candidates.“The current maps are already blatantly racist and discriminate against voters of color, communities of color, all over the state,” said Anthony Gutierrez, the executive director of the Texas chapter of Common Cause, a watchdog group. “There would be absolutely no way you get to five more Republican districts without just completely trampling on minority voting rights.”Two Democratic seats likely to be targeted are the ones in south Texas currently held by representatives Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez, Wasserman said. Trump won both districts in 2024 and Republicans could easily tweak their boundaries to make them winnable. Democrats also represent four districts in the Houston area, and Republicans could shift the boundaries to try and pick up one or two districts depending on how aggressive they want to be.The Republican push to redraw the map comes as the state is still reeling from deadly floods that left at least 134 people dead with more than 100 people still missing. Democrats in the Texas legislature are reportedly considering walking out of the special session in order to deny Republicans a quorum needed to pass the maps. Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, has said he will assist in “hunting down” members who walk out and compel them back to the capitol.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTo justify redrawing the maps, Texas governor Greg Abbott pointed to a 7 July letter from the justice department claiming lawmakers had impermissibly sorted voters based on their race. Both the letter’s argument, and Abbott’s quick acceptance of it, raised eyebrows because Texas officials have said for years they did not consider race at all when they drew the maps.“My jaw dropped when I saw that letter,” said Mark Gaber, an attorney at the Campaign Legal Center, who is representing some of the plaintiffs suing Texas over the maps already in place. “Either the witnesses were not telling the truth or the entire premise of this special session and the mid-decade redistricting is false.”In its letter, the justice department pointed to four districts where it claimed voters had been unconstitutionally sorted by race. In two of those districts, two different groups of minority voters constitute a majority that can elect their preferred candidates. Another district is majority Hispanic. The final district it raised issue with was drawn after judges found intentional discrimination in a previous district.Several legal experts said those claims were highly questionable.“The DoJ letter is completely concocted and it reflects a complete misunderstanding of the law, but that’s not what they’re interested in,” said Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which is representing some of the plaintiffs challenging the current congressional map.“If I were them, I would be consulting legal counsel about the possibility of being found guilty of perjury in what they testified to under oath,” he added.Mapmakers may want to keep communities who share common interests together for reasons that have nothing to do with their race, said Michael Li, a redistricting expert at the Brennan Center for Justice.Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School who worked on voting rights issues at both the justice department and White House said the letter was “nonsense”.“What they appear to articulate in the letters is the notion that any time there happens to be multiple minorities in a district, that’s a constitutional violation. And that’s like seven different versions of wrong,” he said. More

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      Trump tours Texas flood damage as disaster tests vow to shutter Fema

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      During a trip on Friday to look at the devastation caused by the catastrophic flooding in Texas, Donald Trump claimed that state and federal officials had done an “incredible job”, saying of the disaster that he had “never seen anything like this”.The trip comes as he has remained conspicuously quiet about his previous promises to do away with the federal agency in charge of disaster relief.The Washington Post reported on Friday that the Trump administration has backed away from plans to abolish the Federal Emergency Management Agency, but administration officials continue to dodge questions about the agency’s future and many are still calling for serious reforms, potentially sending much of its work to the states.Since the 4 July disaster, which has killed at least 120 people, the president and his top aides have focused on the once-in-a-lifetime nature of what occurred and the human tragedy involved rather than the government-slashing crusade that has been popular with Trump’s core supporters.Speaking at a roundtable in Kerrville, Texas, Trump said that Fema deployed multiple emergency response units and he praised all the officials involved in what he said was an effective and swift response.“Every American should be inspired by what has taken place,” Trump said. He likened the flooding to “a giant, giant wave in the Pacific Ocean that the best surfers in the world would be afraid to surf”.Trump called a reporter a “bad person” for asking a question about families of the dead who are saying that their loved ones could have been saved had emergency warnings gone out before the flooding. Trump said: “I think this has been heroism. This has been incredible, the job you’ve all done.”In an NBC News interview on Thursday, Trump said: “Nobody ever saw a thing like this coming.” He added: “This is a once-in-every-200-years deal.” He has also suggested he would have been ready to visit Texas within hours but did not want to burden authorities still searching for the more than 170 people who are still missing.Trump’s shift in focus underscores how tragedy can complicate political calculations, even though the president has made slashing the federal workforce and charging ally turned antagonist Elon Musk with dramatically shrinking the size of government centerpieces of his administration’s opening months.The president traveled to Texas on Air Force One with Melania Trump, the first lady; Brooke Rollins, the agriculture secretary; Scott Turner, the housing secretary; the small business administrator, Kelly Loeffler; and senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz of Texas, among others. Trump is expected to do an aerial tour of some of the hard-hit areas.Before arriving at the Happy State Bank Expo Hall in Kerrville, where he delivered remarks, the president and his motorcade stopped at an area near the Guadalupe River in Kerrville next to an overturned tractor-trailer and downed trees. Damage appeared to be more extensive near the riverbank. Trump, his wife and the Texas governor, Greg Abbott, took a briefing about flooding there from local officials.Trump has used past disaster response efforts to launch political attacks. While still a candidate trying to win back the presidency, Trump made his own visit to North Carolina after Hurricane Helene last year and accused the Biden administration of blocking disaster aid to victims in Republican-heavy areas.During his first weekend back in the White House, Trump again visited North Carolina to survey Helene damage and toured the aftermath of devastating wildfires in Los Angeles. But he also used those trips to sharply criticize the Biden administration and California officials.During Tuesday’s cabinet meeting, Trump praised the federal flooding response. Turning to Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, which oversees Fema, he said: “You had people there as fast as anybody’s ever seen.”Noem described traveling to Texas and seeing heartbreaking scenes, including around Camp Mystic, the century-old all-girls Christian summer camp where at least 27 people were killed.“The parents that were looking for their children and picking up their daughter’s stuffed animals out of the mud and finding their daughter’s shoe that might be laying in the cabin,” she said.Noem said that “just hugging and comforting people matters a lot” and “this is a time for all of us in this country to remember that we were created to serve each other”.But the secretary is also co-chairing a Fema review council charged with submitting suggestions for how to overhaul the agency in coming months.“We as a federal government don’t manage these disasters. The state does,” Noem told Trump on Tuesday.She also referenced the administration’s government-reducing efforts, saying: ”We’re cutting through the paperwork of the old Fema. Streamlining it, much like your vision of how Fema should operate.”Pressed this week on whether the White House will continue to work to shutter Fema, Karoline Leavitt would not say.“The president wants to ensure American citizens always have what they need during times of need,” the White House press secretary said. “Whether that assistance comes from states or the federal government, that is a policy discussion that will continue.”Before Trump left on Friday, Russell Vought, director of the office of management and budget, similarly dodged questions from reporters at the the White House about Fema’s future – instead noting that the agency had billions of dollars in its reserves “to continue to pay for necessary expenses” and that the president has promised Texas: “Anything it needs, it will get.”“We also want Fema to be reformed,” Vought added. “The president is going to continue to be asking tough questions of all of us agencies, no different than any other opportunity to have better government.” More

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      Texas’s pardon of a man who killed a Black Lives Matter protester is chilling | Tayo Bero

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      This month, the Texas state parole board unanimously recommended the pardon and release of convicted killer and former US army sergeant Daniel Perry, along with the restoration of his firearm rights. Perry had been working as an Uber driver in July 2020 when he shot and killed Garrett Foster, a white man who was attending a Black Lives Matter protest with his Black fiancee. Perry was later indicted for murder, tried, convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison by an Austin jury.Almost a year from the date of his sentencing, Perry’s pardon was granted by Texas governor Greg Abbott, and he now walks free. As terrifying as the initial incident was, this pardon sends a chilling message: that politically motivated killing is OK, and that politicians are more focused on pandering to political pressure than protecting people’s lives.During Perry’s trial, it emerged that in the weeks before he killed Foster, he had shared white-supremacist memes and talked about how he “might have to kill a few people” who were demonstrating outside his house in 2020. He also compared the Black Lives Matter movement to “a zoo full of monkeys that are freaking out flinging their shit”. And days into nationwide protests sparked by George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer, Perry sent a text message saying: “I might go to Dallas to shoot looters.”Perry described shooting Foster as an act of self-defense. Yet according to trial testimony about the day Foster died, Perry had seen the predominantly Black group of protesters gathered across the street from him, ran a red light and drove his car right into the middle of the protest. When Foster – who was legally carrying a firearm but had not, according to some eyewitnesses, threatened Perry – approached Perry’s car, he shot him dead and sped away.In rehashing this horrendous incident, the question on my mind is: how do you justify “pardoning” a person like this? Condemning Perry’s release isn’t about believing in carcerality or wanting to keep people in prisons, mind you; it’s about how we get to this point as a society, whom we grant permission to kill, and how we treat the people involved in a tragedy like this in its aftermath.Abbott – who rarely issues pardons, and has generally only pardoned low-level, nonviolent offenders – had faced pressure from conservative media figures to grant Perry one. Rightwing pundits like former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and even Texas GOP chair Matt Rinaldi squeezed him publicly about Perry’s conviction. It doesn’t seem like Abbott needed much convincing, though, seeing as he directed the parole board to review Perry’s case just one day after he was convicted.There’s also the question of how we got here. Foster’s death and his killer’s subsequent pardon are the direct result of a government that’s more beholden to wealthy gun lobbyists than concerned with commonsense legislation that literally saves lives. Foster’s death was, in part, the result of a tragic meeting of Texas’s notoriously loose stand-your-ground self-defense laws, which Perry’s supporters claim he was upholding when he shot Foster, and the state’s “open carry” laws, which Foster was legally exercising when he had his rifle slung over his shoulder during the protest.Alan Bean, the executive director of the Texas-based civil rights advocacy group Friends of Justice, summed up the implications of Perry’s case succinctly.“If one guy with a gun feels threatened by another guy with a gun, murder is permissible. If both men felt threatened, the resulting tragedy would technically be ruled a no-fault double-homicide,” he wrote after news of the pardon went public.Even Texas police aren’t blind to the ways that open-carry laws are exceptionally dangerous and nonsensical. “We were completely opposed to ‘license to carry’ because anytime there’s more guns, there’s a problem,” Ray Hunt, executive director of the Houston police officers’ union, said back in 2021.If there was any doubt that Abbott doesn’t care how problematic these laws are, even after what happened to Foster, consider that he used his pardon announcement to reaffirm that “Texas has one of the strongest ‘stand your ground’ laws of self-defense that cannot be nullified by a jury or a progressive district attorney”.These are scary words to hear from your elected official after a tragedy that could have been avoided with better gun laws. Abbott continues to signal to gun-toting rightwingers that they can go around murdering people they don’t agree with, and that they will have the full force of the law to back them up.Foster’s mother, Sheila, spoke to the New York Times after the pardon, and her words are haunting in their truth. “It doesn’t make sense,” she said over the phone. “It seems like this is some kind of a political circus and it’s costing me my life.”
      Tayo Bero is a Guardian US columnist More

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      Who will Trump pick as his 2024 running mate? A VP shortlist

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      Donald Trump has secured the necessary delegates to win the Republican presidential nomination for a third consecutive election. That result was never in much doubt, but the contest to be Trump’s running mate is harder to predict. Once again, the Republican primaries demonstrated his strength among white men in rural areas, leading to speculation that he will choose a woman or person of colour to broaden his appeal in November.Here are some factors to consider and a look at the likely contenders.Why does Trump need a new running mate?Former vice-president Mike Pence was a useful ally during the 2016 and 2020 campaigns, a Christian conservative who shored up support among Republicans suspicious of the thrice-married reality TV star. But Pence’s refusal to comply with his boss’s demand to overturn the 2020 election led to a falling out and made Pence a perceived traitor and target of the January 6 insurrectionists. After a failed bid for president in 2024, Pence recently said in an interview that he will not be endorsing Trump.What is Trump looking for in a 2024 VP?He may decide he needs a female running mate to make himself less toxic to suburban women, especially with abortion rights looming large as an election issue. But history suggests that he will have three priorities: a person who displays loyalty; a person who looks like they are from “central casting”; a person who knows their place and will not outshine him on the campaign trail.Will Trump’s VP pick matter in the 2024 election?Probably not a lot. There is little evidence that a woman on the ticket draws more female voters or that a running mate’s home state will necessarily back them. Dan Pfeiffer, a White House communications director under President Barack Obama, told the New York Times: “The vice-presidential pick is something that generates a massive amount of press coverage but has the most minimal of impacts on the election.”But perhaps a bad pick can do damage: Republican nominee John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin in 2008 probably didn’t help. This year, however, Joe Biden and Donald Trump are, again, the two oldest candidates in history, giving new meaning to their VP picks being only “a heartbeat away from the presidency”.How many VPs have gone on to become president?Fifteen. Eight of these succeeded to the office on the death of a president, including Lyndon Johnson, who was sworn in onboard Air Force One after the assassination of John F Kennedy. Gerald Ford was the only unelected vice-president and president following the resignations of Spiro Agnew and Richard Nixon. Biden served as vice-president under Barack Obama, who was succeeded by Trump, who was then defeated by Biden for the presidency.What to know about the Republicans on Trump’s vice-president shortlistView image in fullscreenGreg AbbottAge: 66Occupation: Governor of TexasThe Texas politician is a Trump loyalist and hardliner on border security who has fought a series of legal battles with the Biden White House. Trump said he “would very much consider Abbott” for vice-president during a joint Fox News interview in February. Abbott, who uses a wheelchair, said he was “committed to governing Texas” and to his own re-election campaign.View image in fullscreenTucker CarlsonAge: 54Occupation: Conservative political commentator and writerThe former Fox News host is a strong ideological match. Like Trump, he relishes offending liberals, praising autocrats such as Vladimir Putin of Russia and Viktor Orbán of Hungary (he conducted fawning interviews with both) and pushing the far-right “great replacement” theory that western elites are importing immigrant voters to supplant white people. Although Carlson once wrote of Trump in a text message, “I hate him passionately”, more recently he has praised him as “sensible and wise”.View image in fullscreenBen CarsonAge: 72Occupation: Retired neurosurgeonBorn in Detroit to a single mother with a third- grade education who worked multiple jobs to support her family, Carson rose to become a leading neurosurgeon – a life story that the Trump campaign could promote as it seeks to win over aspirational Black votes. As housing secretary, Carson was among Trump’s longest-serving cabinet members. He remained loyal to the outgoing president after the 6 January 2021 riot at the US Capitol and campaigned with him in Iowa before the caucuses.View image in fullscreenRon DeSantisAge: 45Occupation: Governor of FloridaDeSantis tried and failed to dethrone Trump as king of the Republican party, flaming out during the primary season. He once made a campaign ad in which he read Trump’s book about getting rich, The Art of the Deal, to one of his children and encouraged them to “build the wall” along the US-Mexico border by stacking toy bricks. But when he ran for president, Trump branded him “Ron DeSanctimonious” and seems unlikely to forgive the perceived disloyalty.View image in fullscreenByron DonaldsAge: 45Occupation: US representative for Florida’s 19th congressional districtThe Freedom Caucus Republican is one of Trump’s most prominent African American supporters and backed him against state governor Ron DeSantis in the primary election. He is short on experience, having only started in Congress in 2021. At an event hosted by Axios, Donalds suggested that he would be willing to decline to certify the 2028 election results if he were vice-president.View image in fullscreenTulsi GabbardAge: 42Occupation: Rightwing media personality.The former Democratic congresswoman and presidential candidate has rebranded herself as a rightwing media personality. She campaigned for election-denier Kari Lake and other Republicans in the 2022 midterm elections. Her provocative critiques of the western foreign policy establishment, and her overtures to dictators such as Putin and Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, are likely to resonate with Trump. Asked in March by Fox News if she would consider a vice-presidential slot, Gabbard replied: “I would be open to that.”View image in fullscreenMarjorie Taylor GreeneAge: 49Occupation: Republican congresswomanThe far-right flamethrower from Georgia personifies the age of Trumpism with her pugnacious style, bizarre conspiracy theories, indications of support for political violence, and racist, antisemitic and Islamophobic statements. She once suggested that, if she had led the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, the mob would have been armed and victorious in its efforts to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 victory (she later claimed this was “sarcasm”).View image in fullscreenNikki HaleyAge: 52Occupation: Politician.The former South Carolina governor was Trump’s first ambassador to the United Nations and, as the daughter of Sikh immigrants from India, could help neutralise charges of sexism and racism against him. But her persistence as his most durable opponent during the Republican primary, in which she questioned his age and mental acuity, would be hard for Trump – who called her “Birdbrain” – and the Maga base to forgive. They are also at odds on aid to Ukraine.View image in fullscreenKari LakeAge: 54Occupation: Candidate for US Senate in Arizona.The firebrand former TV anchor was the breakout Republican star of the midterm elections but lost the race for governor of Arizona, a result she has never accepted. She was endorsed by Trump and continued to repeat his election lies while campaigning as a surrogate for him during the Republican primary. But she may be seen as more valuable running for Senate because she could help Republicans take control of that chamber if she wins.View image in fullscreenKristi NoemAge: 52Occupation: Governor of South Dakota.The former pageant queen and congresswoman is serving her second term as South Dakota’s governor after a landslide re-election victory in 2022. She gained national attention after refusing to impose a statewide mask mandate during the coronavirus pandemic. She quashed speculation about her own presidential ambitions by endorsing Trump early. But her conservative stance on abortion – and media reports of an affair with the former Trump aide Corey Lewandowski – could be an electoral liability.View image in fullscreenVivek RamaswamyAge: 38Occupation: Business executive.The former candidate for the Republican presidential nomination is a political neophyte who shook up the Republican primary debates, acting as unofficial Trump surrogate and earning the scorn of Haley. Trump condemned Ramaswamy as “not Maga” when he gained traction in the opinion polls but has since praised the biotech entrepreneur, who dropped out and threw his weight behind the former president. Ramaswamy is a young person of colour, although his views on the climate crisis are out of step with young voters.View image in fullscreenSarah SandersAge: 41Occupation: Governor of Arkansas.She was a devoted White House press secretary, tirelessly promoting Trump’s agenda and insisting that he was neither racist nor sexist. Last year she was inaugurated as the first woman to serve as governor of Arkansas and she is currently the youngest governor in the country. Her father, former governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, is the creator of The Kids Guide to President Trump and an ex-pastor who might help shore up the Christian evangelical vote.View image in fullscreenTim ScottAge: 58Occupation: Senator for South Carolina.The Black evangelical Christian made his own bid for the presidency but dropped out two months before the Iowa caucuses, endorsing Trump and telling him: “I just love you.” The senator might be seen as a way to build on Trump’s recent progress among male African American voters. Asked about potential running mates during a Fox News town hall in February, Trump pointed to Scott and said: “A lot of people are talking about that gentleman right over there.” Scott is single but, with impeccable timing, recently presented his girlfriend with an engagement ring.View image in fullscreenElise StefanikAge: 39Occupation: US representative for New York’s 21st congressional districtThe New York politician is the highest-ranking woman in the Republican conference in the House of Representatives and one of the first members of Congress to endorse Trump. Once a moderate, she gained national prominence last year after embarrassing the heads of three top universities about antisemitism on their campuses during a congressional hearing, which prompted two of them to later resign. She has also parroted Trump’s use of the term “hostages” to describe those convicted of crimes on January 6.View image in fullscreenJD VanceAge: 39Occupation: US senator for OhioThe venture capitalist rose to prominence with his 2016 memoir, Hillbilly Elegy. A one-time Trump critic, he is now an ardent supporter and claims to be fighting for the working class by taking on liberals who “populate the upper echelons of American government, business, media, entertainment and academia”. He echoes the former president’s populist views on immigration and an “America First” foreign policy on Ukraine. Donald Trump Jr told Newsmax in January: “I’d love to see a JD Vance. People who are principally in alignment as well as aggressive.” More

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      Trump says Texas governor Greg Abbott ‘absolutely’ on vice-president shortlist

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      Greg Abbott, the hard-right governor of Texas, is “absolutely” on Donald Trump’s shortlist for vice-president should Trump as expected win the Republican nomination to face Joe Biden.Calling Abbott a “spectacular man”, Trump told Sean Hannity of Fox News the three-term governor, an anti-immigration extremist, had “done a great job”, adding: “Yeah, certainly he would be somebody that I would very much consider.”“So he’s on the list?” Hannity said.“Absolutely, he is,” Trump said, as Abbott listened.Abbott has engineered showdowns with Democratic authorities, sending undocumented migrants to Democratic-run cities, and with the federal government, blocking border patrol access to the Rio Grande river at a common crossing point for migrants, then refusing to comply with orders to back off.“He really stepped it up,” Trump said of Abbott on Thursday, during a visit to the spot in question, a park in Eagle Pass, part of a Texas trip the same day Biden visited the border elsewhere.Abbott, Trump said, had “been amazing”.Abbott, however, told CNN last week “there’s so many people other than myself who are best situated” to be Trump’s running mate, adding that he would help Trump pick. On Wednesday, Abbott told CBS he intended to run for a fourth term in Texas.At Trump’s direction, Republicans are attempting to use conditions at the southern border for political gain in an election year, to the extent of the congressional GOP blocking a hardline, bipartisan deal negotiated in the Senate.In his own border trip, Biden said Trump should “join me” in addressing the problem.Trump’s dominance of his party is near-complete. This week he enjoyed a major victory when Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Republican Senate leader since 2006 but at odds with Trump since the attack on Congress of 6 January 2021, said he would step down this year.In Texas, Trump said Abbott should replace McConnell.“I’d rather be governor of Texas,” Abbott said.“I think you’re doing well,” Trump said. “I want to keep you in Texas.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump is all but certain to again capture the Republican presidential nomination, having won all primary contests and with the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, his last opponent, seen as likely to drop out after Super Tuesday next week.Trump enjoys such dominance despite facing 91 criminal charges from four indictments, multimillion-dollar civil reversals over his business affairs and an allegation of rape a judge called “substantially true”, and attempts to remove him from the ballot for inciting January 6, most recently in Illinois.Informal auditions for Trump’s running mate continue.Hannity asked Trump about his shortlist. Trump gave a less-than-glowing assessment of the presidential campaign mounted by the South Carolina senator Tim Scott, who dropped out early and pivoted to fawning support.“Tim, for himself, he was fine,” Trump said. “He did OK. I mean, he was OK as a candidate, but he didn’t want to talk about himself. He’s a very good man. For me, he’s unbelievable. He’s a surrogate.”Other candidates Trump has mentioned include Kristi Noem, governor of South Dakota; Elise Stefanik of New York, the No 3 House Republican; the biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, a former primary rival; Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii; and Byron Donalds, a far-right congressman from Florida.Others said to be in the running include JD Vance, a populist senator from Ohio; Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the governor of Arkansas who was Trump’s second White House press secretary; and Katie Britt, a senator from Alabama. More

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      Texas’s ‘states’ rights’ argument in the border dispute sets a dangerous precedent

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      Over the past few weeks, a quiet legal crisis has been unfolding on the US-Mexico border. Texas has seized control of part of the border and claimed the right to prevent federal authorities from exercising jurisdiction there. After the US supreme court ruled that the federal government could tear down razor wire erected by Texas authorities, the state vowed to erect more – and Governor Greg Abbott claimed that because the federal government had failed to protect his state from an “invasion” of refugees, it has “broken the compact between the United States and the States” and lost the right to exercise authority over the border altogether.To understand why this is so alarming, you need to see it in two historical contexts. The first is the notion of a “compact” between the states. This idea holds that the constitution is not the supreme law of the land but rather a mere agreement between independently sovereign states. Those states hence retain the right to decide when certain actions by the federal government break the compact – and to reclaim their independence accordingly.This idea – sometimes known as “compact theory” – was key to the quasi-legal arguments deployed by the Confederate states in the 19th century to justify first secession, and then civil war. As well as being rejected by the framers of the constitution, it was also explicitly ruled incorrect by the supreme court once the civil war was over. Nowadays, there is really no such thing as “compact theory” outside of the imagination of neo-Confederates and other far-right groups – there’s just federal law, and actions that break that law.Secondly, the erroneous idea of the compact and the broader agenda of “states’ rights” of which it is a part have often been deployed in order to advance a white supremacist agenda. Slavery is the most notable example. But the southern states – including Texas – also invoked these ideas to defend the system of Jim Crow, which within living memory denied full rights to generations of African Americans. Only the civil rights movement forced a change.Another part of this tradition is the inversion of the realities of power and violence which lie at its heart. Slavery was justified in part by arguments that the slaves, if freed, would threaten and even exterminate the white race. Jim Crow was reinforced by the related idea that free Black people would, if not physically eradicate white people, destroy the white body politic by contaminating it with unfit citizens. In each case the reality of who was really a threat to whom – the slavedriver to the slave, the Klansman to the free Black citizen – was hidden by an elaborate ideology of fear which in reality was used to justify the continuation of white supremacy.By claiming the right to nullify federal authority in order to wield lethal force against non-white migrants, Abbott is placing himself squarely in the center of these two traditions. His actions have already contributed to the death of two children and a mother who drowned in the Rio Grande as Texas authorities prevented federal agents from coming to their aid. Refugees are among the most powerless people in the world, but to Abbott they are elements of an “invading” force which threatens the security of Texas and the United States. Like his predecessors, he believes that even the constitution shouldn’t stand in the way of his ability to harm them.But just because Abbott is invoking some of the most sordid chapters in American history to justify his actions doesn’t mean we should have confidence that he will fail.One of the most disturbing aspects of this whole affair is that despite Abbott’s arguments having no legal merit, four supreme court justices were willing to endorse Texas blocking federal authorities from removing the razor wire at the border. The fact that this case was so narrowly decided is a five-alarm fire that suggests we are only one new court decision or one new Republican supreme court appointment away from a radical restructuring of America’s constitutional order. Future historians may look back on the 2020s as a turning point as profound as the civil rights movement of the 1960s – and one in which the pendulum swung back the other way.What Texas is doing also dramatically raises the stakes of this year’s presidential election – and not just because the next president may be able to pick another supreme court justice. With so many Republicans endorsing the idea that the situation at the border can be characterized as an invasion, the road seems to be open for a Republican president to make a federal invasion declaration.This would not only pave the way for an even more militarized treatment of refugees, but also allow the federal government to suspend the rights of millions of Americans living in border areas if it deems such a step necessary to repel the supposed attack.Luckily, there are legal and institutional barriers to such a step – many constitutional scholars believe that a federal invasion declaration requires an act of Congress. But in this case as in others, all roads lead to the supreme court, and it has already signaled its openness to many extreme ideas. America is in a time of great constitutional danger, and the border may be both an early warning sign – and the place where the country ultimately comes unstuck.
      Andrew Gawthorpe is a historian of the United States at Leiden University. He writes a newsletter called America Explained More

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      Texas officials block US border agents from helping three drowning migrants

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      A Texas congressman said Saturday that three people, including two children, who were seeking asylum in the US drowned while trying to reach the US near the border city of Eagle Pass, where the Biden administration says Texas has begun denying access to border patrol agents.Congressman Henry Cuellar, a Texas Democrat, accused the state of failing to act amid escalating tensions between Texas and the US government over immigration enforcement.Cuellar said the people who drowned were a mother and her two children, an eight-year-old girl and a 10-year-old boy.“This is a tragedy, and the state bears responsibility,” Cuellar, who is the top Democrat on the House appropriations committee’s subcommittee on homeland security, said in a statement.On Friday, the Justice Department told the US supreme court that Texas had taken control of an area known as Shelby park and were not letting border patrol agents enter.The park is in Eagle Pass, which is a major crossing point for migrants entering from Mexico and is the center of Republican governor Greg Abbott’s aggressive attempts to stop illegal crossings, known as Operation Lone Star. People crossing the river in that area have been killed when swept away by currents of the Rio Grande.Cuellar, whose district includes the Texas border, said Mexican authorities alerted border patrol of three people in distress struggling in the river late Friday.He said federal agents attempted to call and relay the information to Texas national guard members at Shelby park with no success.Border patrol agents then visited the entrance park, but were “physically barred by Texas officials from entering the area”, the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement provided to CNN.“The Texas governor’s policies are cruel, dangerous, and inhumane, and Texas’s blatant disregard for federal authority over immigration poses grave risks,” DHS said.The 50-acre park is owned by the city, but it is used by the state department of public safety and the Texas military department to patrol border crossings. Although daily crossings diminished from the thousands to about 500, state authorities put up fences and stationed military vehicles by the entry to deny access to the public and border patrol agents this week, according to a court filing this week.On Saturday, Texas disputed claims that border patrol agents were denied access to the park. In a response to the court they argued border patrol had scaled down its presence since the summer, when the state moved their resources and manpower to the park.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe Texas military department (TMD) said it had searched the river after being contacted by border patrol agents, but had not seen anyone in distress.TMD said officials saw Mexican authorities responding to an incident on the Mexican side of the river about 45 minutes later. At that point TMD ceased search operations after reporting their observations to the border patrol, it said. Border patrol then confirmed that the Mexican authorities did not require additional assistance, TMD said.“At no time did TMD security personnel along the river observe any distressed migrants, nor did TMD turn back any illegal immigrants from the US during this period,” TMD said in a statement.“Also, at no point was TMD made aware of any bodies in the area of Shelby Park, nor was TMD made aware of any bodies being discovered on the US side of the border regarding this situation.”On Saturday, members of the public held a ceremony at the park to mark the deaths of migrants in their region. Julio Vasquez, a pastor in attendance, said access was granted after making extended requests with the city and sharing pictures showing the entry still fenced up and guarded by members of the national guard and military vehicles.
      Associated Press contributed to this report More

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      US threatens to sue Texas over law allowing state police to arrest migrants

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      The US Department of Justice has threatened to sue the state of Texas if it implements a law that would allow state police to arrest any person deemed suspicious of crossing the border illegally.The law, called Senate Bill 4, is scheduled to go into effect on 5 March. One of the strictest immigration laws ever passed in American history, SB4 seeks to “prohibit ‘sanctuary city’ policies, that prohibit local law enforcement from inquiring about a person’s immigration status and complying with detainer requests”.The law would include “improper border entry” as a new criminal offense, placing undocumented Texas residents and migrants within the grips of the state’s criminal justice system.Immigration and border enforcement is a function of the federal government, the justice department argues: since the US supreme court ruled so in the landmark United States v Arizona case in 2012, immigration policy has long been under the purview of the US federal government – not individual states.In a letter addressed to the Republican Texas governor, Greg Abbott, the Biden administration has given the Lone Star state a deadline of 3 January to reverse course.The letter says, in part: “SB 4 is preempted and violates the United States constitution. Accordingly, the United States intends to file suit to enjoin the enforcement of SB 4 unless Texas agrees to refrain from enforcing the law. The United States is committed to both securing the border and ensuring the processing of noncitizens consistent with the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). SB 4 is contrary to those goals.”On X, Abbott wrote: “The Biden Admin. not only refuses to enforce current U.S. immigration laws, they now want to stop Texas from enforcing laws against illegal immigration. I’ve never seen such hostility to the rule of law in America.”He added: “Biden is destroying America. Texas is trying to save it.”The move is one of several attempts by Texas at enforcing border security, all a part of Operation Lone Star, a joint operation between the Texas department of public safety and the Texas military department with the mission of countering illegal immigration.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionEarlier this year, in July, Abbott and his administration were condemned as inhumane by immigrant and civil rights groups for deploying razor wire and a large floating buoy in the Rio Grande to deter illegal migration – another issue on which the US Department of Justice pursued legal action against Texas.In May, shortly after the Biden administration ended the pandemic-era policy Title 42, which had given US officials authority to turn away people who had come to the US-Mexico border claiming asylum in order to prevent the spread of Covid-19, Abbott deployed a security unit called the Texas tactical border force to the US-Mexico border. The force is equipped with aircrafts, boats, night vision devices and riot gear.In recent years, Texas has also joined Republican-led Florida in bussing undocumented immigrants from their states to “sanctuary” cities such as Chicago, New York and Boston. More

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      Texas legislators pass hardline immigration bill denounced as racist

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      The Texas governor, Greg Abbott, is expected to sign a bill that would make crossing into the state without documentation a crime, one of the harshest immigration policies in the US to date.The bill, SB 4, was passed by the Texas house and is awaiting final approval from Abbott.On Wednesday, Abbott said that he looked forward to signing the bill, in a post to X, formally known as Twitter.“I look forward to signing Senate Bill 4, which creates penalties for illegal entry into Texas & authorizes the removal of illegal immigrants apprehended at the border,” Abbott said.In recent months, Abbott, a Republican, has launched a series of controversial programs targeting migrants, including bussing migrants to Democratic-led cities without proper coordination and Operation Lone Star, a multimillion-dollar initiative that has placed razor wire and thousands of troops at the Texas-Mexico border.SB 4 makes it unlawful for anyone to cross into Texas from another country without papers a state misdemeanor that is punishable by up to two years in prison.The law also requires a state judge to order a person to return to the country they crossed from in lieu of prosecution.If a person refuses to return, they could face a felony charge and up to 20 years in prison.The bill also gives Texas officers the ability to arrest anyone who they believe has crossed into the state illegally, a fact that advocates and Democrats have decried as racist.Legal advocates have questioned the bill’s legality, as removing noncitizens from the US falls under the jurisdiction of the federal government. Experts have also warned that the new bill could cause a dispute with Mexico, as the country and others could choose not to cooperate with state officials.Democratic Texas representatives and advocates soundly denounced the bill as problematic and a waste of state funds.The Texas representative Jolanda Jones called SB 4 and its supporters “racist”.“It’s not all right to be racist. I will stop pulling the race card when you stop being racist,” she said.The Texas representative Ramón Romero Jr posted a video on social media denouncing the passing of SB 4 and emphasizing the importance of winning elections.“We fought really hard but sadly on issues like this, their ears are closed on the other side,” Romero said in a video posted to X, referring to Republicans. “We can say anything and they’re just not listening.”In a statement to X, the Texas Civil Rights Project, a social justice non-profit, said the bill was “creating an entirely new, separate, unequal immigration system in the US” and allowing police to “be both judge and jury to determine a person’s right to stay in the US”.Immigrant rights organizations also rallied outside of the Texas House on Tuesday to protest the vote on SB 4.SB 4 was considered as apart of a separate legislative session requested by Abbott for several anti-immigration bills. More